Genealogy of Marion's Philosophy of Religion

Tamsin Jones believes that locating Jean-Luc Marion solely within theological or phenomenological discourse undermines the coherence of his intellectual and philosophical enterprise. Through a comparative examination of Marion's interpretation and use of Dionysius the Areopagite and Gregory of Nyssa, Jones evaluates the interplay of the manifestation and hiddenness of phenomena. By placing Marion against the backdrop of these Greek fathers, Jones sharpens the tension between Marion's rigorous method and its intended purpose: a safeguard against idolatry. At once situated at the crossroads of the debate over the turn to religion in French phenomenology and an inquiry into the retrieval of early Christian writings within this discourse, A Genealogy of Marion's Philosophy of Religion opens up a new view of the phenomenology of religious experience.

[A]n informative and provocative book . . . ., Jones has written an informative and provocative book., Jones's excellent work . . . should be on the wish-list of anyone interested in Jean-Luc Marion and contemporary continental philosophy and theology more broadly., Jones has here offered an excellent analysis of the patristic genealogy of Marion's phenomenology: clear, precise and richly documented in its accounts of Marion's thought, as well as astute and balanced in its critical appraisals. If only more philosophers – both analytic and Continental – could write this way.

Tamsin Jones is Director of Undergraduate Studies and Lecturer on Religion for the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University.