The Relation Between the Notion of Mystery in Gabriel Marcel and the Saturated Phenomenon in Jean-Luc Marion

Abstract

This article aims to contribute to the debate on the place of phenomenology in Gabriel Marcel’s thought by analyzing the relationship between his notion of mystery and Jean-Luc Marion’s idea of the saturated phenomenon; both concepts are linked to a questioning of the paradigm of objectivity. It is shown how both proposals move beyond the limits of classical phenomenology, granting priority to givenness as an experience that overflows the subject’s capacity for conceptualization. Both Marcel and Marion sought to free the appearing of phenomena from the limits imposed by consciousness and conceptual a priori conditions. Marion develops the notion of the saturated phenomenon, in which intuition overflows intention, acknowledging that consciousness can neither control nor constitute the phenomenon. Marcel, for his part, proposed the concept of mystery, which entails an existential experience that affects consciousness and cannot be reduced to a technical or objective problem. Metaphors such as light, along with the relation to art, reveal their convergence. The comparison shows that, although the two authors employ different terminology, their proposals converge on the primacy of givenness over prior conceptual schemas.