Practice and Givenness: The Problem of ‘Reduction’ in the work of Jean‐Luc Marion

Abstract Jean‐Luc Marion's work has received plenty of critical attention in recent years. This paper returns to the core of Marion's project in a rather different way from many of the previous critiques by focussing on two troubling aspects of his work. Firstly, the way in which Marion conceives the relationship between phenomenology and theology is explored in the hope that Marion's missteps might illuminate the ongoing problem of the relationship between philosophy and theology; secondly, the major methodological move which Marion makes, that of linking givenness to phenomenological reduction, is critically examined. This latter critique is the main purpose of the paper, since it is apparent that the role which reduction plays in Marion's phenomenology, when seen under the rubric of a philosophical practice, also indicates one possible route towards the clarification of the first problem, that of the relationship between philosophy and theology.