This dissertation seeks answers to two questions: “What is the event in phenomenology today?” and “Who experiences the event?” These questions are addressed by examining the phenomenology of the event of two significant thinkers of our time, Jean-Luc Marion and Claude Romano. In the history of philosophy, the concept of the event has mostly been understood to be either beyond philosophical interest or reduced to a mere occurrence. Moreover, in the phenomenological tradition, events were generally not taken into account as phenomena requiring their own specific phenomenological analysis. In my research, I engage with two contemporary philosophers who discuss the event as a central theme of phenomenology. For them, the event is not simply a phenomenon among other phenomena. The event rather determines their general understanding of phenomenality, of subjectivity and, consequently, of phenomenology itself.
In the first part, I discuss the notion of the event and show why, for Marion and Romano, the event has a different phenomenological status than objects and facts, respectively. The two chapters comprising the first part of the dissertation describe the phenomenality of the event and its unique mode of appearing. This reconceptualization of phenomenality also necessitates a rethinking of subjectivity. To the extent that earlier conceptions of subjectivity were guided by the phenomenality of objects and facts, the event, which is neither object nor fact, requires a new understanding of “subjectivity.” For both Marion and Romano, the phenomenality of the event is also seen as the source of subjectivation. In this regard, in the second part of the dissertation, I investigate the question of “Who experiences the event?” Both philosophers offer a new phenomenological notion of the human, replacing that of the subject. In this respect, Marion’s adonné and Romano’s advenant aim to abandon the transcendental perspective in phenomenology and replace it by these new conceptions that can do justice to their respective concepts of the event.
Their new conceptions of phenomenality and subjectivity also bring about a transformation in and of phenomenology as such. This compels us to rethink some fundamental tenets of phenomenology. In light of this transformation, I conclude this study by showing how Marion’s and Romano’s accounts of the event and subjectivity also promise a revised and renewed way of understanding reality and rationality.