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in theory or in practice, has to face. His book is a provocative and important contribudon to the subject, one that richly repays the effort required to work one's way through it.
SAM FLEISCHACKER

University of Illinois-Chicago
JOSH FEIGELSON

Northwestern University

Marion, Jean-Luc. The Erotic Phenomenon. Translated by Stephen E. Lewis. Ghicago: University of Ghicago Press, 2007. Pp. 230. |35.00 (cloth). Jean-Luc Marion is the leading figure in a movement of French Catholic phenomenologists said to have taken a "theological turn." This expression, coined by the late Dominique Janicaud, was a complaint, not a compliment. Janicaud meant a swerve, as in driving off the road, even a kind of hijacking of phenomenology by an overriding theological agenda. But the speed with which The Erotic
Phenomenon, published in France in 2003 {Le phenomhie erotique: Six meditations

[Paris: Grasset, 2003]), has been translated is tesdmony to the interest American philosophers and theologians have shown in Marion, who divides his teaching between Paris and the University of Ghicago. Every important work of Marion, including his studies of Descartes, which have earned him a reputadon as one of the leading Gartesian scholars of the day, has now been translated. Marion is famous for the idea of what he calls the "saturated phenomenon," which is inspired by his study of Chrisdan Neoplatonic mysdcal theologians like Gregory of Nyssa and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. The idea is a heresy within Husserlian phenomenology. Husserl maintained that the act of meaning or intending an object is fulfilled only to the degree that the object intended is actually given (having never actually visited "Moscow" in person, this is for me a reladvely empty intention). The nodon of complete fulfillment remains an ideal only approximated asymptotically. Marion proposes the reverse. Over and above these "poor" phenomena described by Husserl, there are phenomena of such overwhelming givenness or overflowing fulfillment that the intendonal acts aimed at these phenomena are overrun, fioodedor saturated. While it is a debated point whether such phenomena could be accommodated by a more generous reading of Husserl's idea of an intendonal act, Marion has provided a rich and seductive account of several such phenomena, beginning with the work that first earned him internadonal standing. Cod without Being (trans. Thomas Carlson [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991]), which described a God given in the excess of love not "contaminated by being." This idea of doing "without being" owes something both to Levinas, according to whom the ethical demands of the other person draw me out of "being" (self-interest), and to Christian Neoplatonism, where being is what is created while the good is why it was created. Marion's proposal was hotly contested in Catholic circles, because it departed from the mainstream posidon of Thomas Aquinas that God is subsisting being itself, but no less in

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phenomenological circles, where the idea that God could be given as a phenomenon in experience was understandably controversial. In a later book. Being Given (trans. Jeffrey L. Kosky [Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002]), arguably his magnum opus, Marion described four categories of saturated phenomena: the confusion of a great historical "event," the bedazzlement of the "idol" (work of art), the intense flush of self-feeling "flesh," and the "icon," the face of the other person who sees me without being seen; the idea of divine revelation is there placed in the special category of what he calls the "doubly saturated" phenomenon. Having devoted many pages to the mystical experience, the face, and the work of art, Marion here takes up the saturated phenomenon of flesh by way of its most striking expression, the erotic phenomenon. The choice of topic is less surprising than it might seem. Not only is there a long-standing analogy between mystical and erotic experience but the idea that God (who is without being) has become "fiesh" is the central teaching of Christianity. That implies that flesh can do without being, a proposal that Marion defends in the present study. By denying "being" of flesh in the present bookand one would have to keep count of the different senses "being" has for Marion, who in each case comes out for what is "beyond" or "without" beingMarion means that flesh is neither an "object" constituted by a subject (Husserl's transcendental reduction) nor a being that deals concernfully with the world, as in Being and Time (Heidegger's ontological reduction; trans. John Macquarie and Edward Robinson [New York: Harper & Row, 1962]). That one might characterize "being" more generously and thereby circumvent this need to do without being is another of the debatable points raised by Marion's work. Objects and beings together make up the "world," but in the life of flesh the world is suspended (in a third more radical phenomenological reduction), which lets the phenomenon of "flesh" appear. Marion is continuing the work of Michel Henry, anotherstudent of Catholic mysticism and an elder statesman of the movement spearheaded by Marion, for whom flesh means "auto-affection." Flesh is not the body doing (Heidegger) or aiming at (Husserl) something but flesb feeling itself feel. Erotic flesh is not only a striking example of flesh for Marion but its primal phenomenon, the point at which fiesh is awakened as flesh. This again is food for a debate as Marion seems at times to underestimate the sense in which flesh is equally awakened by pain. He even denies that the body in pain is flesh, a suggestion on which I suspect he will find little agreement (119, 177). His argument or exploration is broadly Cartesian, or perhaps counter-Cartesian, constituting a kind of "erotic" or "amorous meditations" as a counterpoint to Descartes' epistemic Meditations. Instead of starting with the cogito's search for epistemic certainty, Marion starts with the lover's search for assurance of being loved, and instead of the cogito's well-founded certainty in the veracity of God, love is assured by the God who is love and who became flesh. Indeed, the Christian God is the perfect and unique sensthe singular sense and unique directionof the erotic phenomenon (sec. 42). Is this not unvarnished theology, as Janicaud complains? While Marion would concede that this conclusion in a robust form is only available to Christian Revelation, he does think that a phenomenology of the erotic phenomenon can lead us up to the point of seeing

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tbe possibility of sucb a Revelation and tbat, were sucb a Revelation to take place in actual fact, pbenomenology sbows tbat it would make perfect sense. Tbe argument proceeds in several steps elaborated in six "meditations" in wbicb we are invited to meditate along witb Marion on tbe "tbings tbemselves," witbout tbe distraction occasioned by tbe mention of proper names. Of course, tbis expression, "tbe tbings tbemselves," alludes to Husserl and Heidegger, so Marion is not trying to make a mystery out of bis debt to numerous autbors from tbe early cburcb fatbers to Heidegger. But tbe controlling analogy of tbe book is to Descartes' Meditations, wbicb is already detectable in tbe subtide of tbe book as well as in tbe tides of individual meditations (or cbapters), wbicb employ tbe Cartesian syntax (Of God, tbat be exists . . . Of tbe Flesb, Tbat it is Aroused). Tbat makes it somewbat puzzling tbat tbe Frencb subtitle of tbe book is omitted in tbe Englisb translation. One can be grateful to translator Stepben E. Lewis for an excellent job of rendering Marion's very nuanced Frencb, but one would like an explanation of tbat decision. Tbe "erotic" pbenomenon, wbile certainly a pbenomenon of flesb, is an amorous pbenomenon, a pbenomenon of love (amour), not of sexual selfgratification. Having beard from Marion in tbe past about agape, in tbis book be bas turned to eros, and in sucb a waytbis is part of its argument, in fact as to skew any bard distinction between tbe two. Tbe meditations proceed by placing a series of questions in tbe moutb of tbe lover, tbe first of wbicb is "does anyone out tbere love me?" (3). Tbe opening movement in Descartes' Meditations, wbicb issued in tbe certainty of tbe cogito's existence, is tbus replaced witb tbe searcb for tbe assurance of being loved. Of wbat use is it simply to exist? Sbeer being is a vanity of vanities, a Parmenidean plenum witbout articulated sense, a pure de trop. Being is redeemed only by love, wbence tbe first question is not wbetber I exist but wbetber I am loved (16-22). Nor can I love myselfI am no causa sui Witb wbat surprise could I overtake myself to break tbe boredom of being (44-46)? Tbe first question proves too self-centered. It presupposes tbat I will not love until I am assured tbat I am loved, tbat my love will not go unrequited. Tbis requirement of reciprocity blocks tbe emergence of tbe erotic pbenomenon, wbicb necessitates a second and more fertile formulation: "can I love first?" (71-72). Now tbe lover means to offer love as an expenditure witbout return, to give love as a gift witbout demanding tbat love be requited. In wbat Marion calls tbe "advance," tbe lover takes tbe initiative and puts bim or berself at risk, and even does so in tbe blind, witbout knowing wbetber bis own love is true or wbetber it will be truly returned. I am not sure of being loved, but I bave tbe bigber assurance tbat I love witbout return, or at least would love to so love. If at least I love to love, even if I fail to love truly, tben I love (as in si fallor sum). Tbe lover's advance is met witb love's response, "bere I am," a pbrase Levinas used to signify etbical responsibility to wbicb Marion assigns an erotic role (106-7). Here I amplease "come" (131), a word witb botb escbatological and erotic cbarge in botb Frencb and Englisb. Bodies make contact in space and offer one anotber resistance, but wben my flesb meets tbe flesb of tbe otber, tbe otber witbdraws, makes room for me, and invites me into bitberto forbidden places. Tbe two flesbes "cross" and give eacb otber flesb in a movement of "crossed" (mutual) deep erotic passivity. I come to feel myself as flesb in feeling

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the other to whom I am giving flesh, even as I feel the other feel me and give me the flesh I cannot give myself (117-20). This crossing reaches a glorious climax, the climax of bodies turned into flesh, blazing with orgasmic glory like the eschatological glory of the body of therisenJesus (127), almost "immaterial" (135). But such glory as the orgasm gives is intermittent, reaching a peak and then a fall, a "suspension," at which point flesh subsides, and the sway of the world is reasserted. That means that the erotic rhythm requires "repetition," in which the lovers again and again take temporary leave of the irremissible world (134). At this point the lovers are assured of their love only intermittently, just as the cogito knows its own existence each time it thinks this thought: "I think, I am," and just as Descartes required the veracity of God to ground this proof more firmly, Marion sets out in search of a comparable anchoring of love. In Meditation V, bearing the very Cartesian titie, "Concerning Lying and Truthfulness," Marion analyzes the possibility of deceit, bad faith, and ambiguity that beset the lovers. What is to stop the one from deceiving the other, or even deceiving him or herself, or simply not knowing his or her own mind? At best, each lover assures the other that the love the other gives is received as true, which brings these meditations to their third and final question, "do you love me?" (189), the answer to which is "you loved me first" (215). Given that the lovers' mutual assurances are as fragile and fallible as their being is mortal and finite, Marion, following Levinas, turns to the child, to give their love phenomenality, durability, and stability (196-97). But that, too, is only a provisional solution, for the child does not return to the parents as their validation but sets off as an independent form of life; neither do children return the gift of life to their parents but pass it on in turn to their own children (203-5). So the instability of the lovers' situation is still unresolved. But they have sworn each an "eternal" oath, to love beyond beingthe lover goes on loving even after the beloved has diedwith a resolve that is irrevocable, having made an "eschatological oath" before eternity, unto God, a dieu, whom the lovers call upon as the eternal witness to their love (211-12). (There is an obvious objection to this crucial move: "eternal" means they vow to love each other "forever," "until death do us part," for as long as they both shall live, but nothing says that they will live on forever.) So too I now know how to love myself, not directly, but as one whose lovableness is affirmed by the other who loves me. Still more importantly, it is no longer true that this "I love, I am loved" is true only intermittently, only as often as flesh meets flesh, but now it is enduringly, stably true, resting upon the foundation of eternal love. In the final section of the book (sec. 42), Marion argues that the three kinds of love differentiated in the tradition are but variations on the unique sense of love, erotic love, for friendship {philia) bears all the features of erotic love minus sexual enjoyment, even as we have seen that eros is no less self-renouncing than agape. That means that even God, who is agapaic love, and who gives his love flesh in Christ, burns with erotic love hyperbolically, more perfectly, without intermittence. God is the unique sense and direction (sens) of erotic love, and it is indeed from God that we first learned of this love, which is why erotic love borrows so much of its language from mystical love (and not the other way around; 149). The book is what we have come to expect from Marion: challenging, subtie

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and nuanced analyses, dazzling formuladons that are the despair of any translator, a provocative and original philosophical genius. But however fascinadng and concrete these analyses, they will not lay to rest the anxiedes of his cridcs. Phenomenologists in the Janicaud style will continue to see this course of meditadons as steered from the start by a theological sens. But consideradons of phenomenological method aside, one wonders in the end whether the Cartesian allusion is not too strong, whether the attempt to situate the intermittence and repeddon of the lovers' condidon within the loving arms of eternal love is not to do too much. Why not concede that as a phenomenon love is irreducibly finite, fragile, and unstable, a risk taken by lovers whose mortality and lack of eternal assurances is what makes their love so precious? The lovers fear that this night may never be repeated or, if it is, that someday the repeddons will simply cease and dissipate into entropic dust, and that is the reason they embrace each other so tighdy. It may be there is more to love than that, that something eternal has loved us before we love, but if so, that is a faith one holds in the face of phenomena that give us no assurance about that.
JOHN D. CAPUTO

Syracuse University

Pendlebury, Gary. Action and Ethics in Aristotle and Hegel: Escaping the Malign Influence of Kant.

Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005. Pp. 208. $99.95 (doth). In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in Hegel's philosophy, much of which has focused on his attempt to simultaneously criticize and extend different elements of Kant's project. Nonetheless, Hegel has not been well understood by most philosophers working in ethics. In this lucid and thoughtprovoking work, Gary Pendlebury argues that there is a deep and important congruity between Hegel and Aristode that is of central importance for ethics. The unusual dde of the book suggests two related quesdons to the reader. First, in what way is Kant's influence malign? Second, what in Hegel's and Aristode's thought will enable us to escape this influence? Pendlebury's provocadve answer to the former quesdon focuses on the assumpdon that minds are essendally individual. His answer to the latter quesdon sketches the normadve implicadons of the idea that we are essentially social creatures. Pendlebury devotes much of the first two chapters to idendfying how modern philosophy (including Kant) has shaped contemporary ethics. Given the dde, the reader might expect to find a reprisal and defense of one or more of Hegel's cridques of Kant. But Pendlebury is here not interested in, for example, the formalism cridque as such. Instead, he targets an assumpdon that he takes to lie at the foundadons of modern philosophy, from Descartes, through Hume and Locke, and all the way up through Kant. This assumpdon is that minds are essentially individual, and so introspection is the best way to detennine what should count as legidmately normadve for us. Pendlebury has in mind the following: Descartes withdrew to his study, intendonally isolating himself and turning inward to look for a source of certainty. In this solitary reflecdon, he