ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we turn to examine each of the saturated phenomena identified by Marion-the event, the idol, flesh, the icon, and r/Revelation-particularly as they are described and analysed in In Excess, although we will also need to consider Being Given. Saturated phenomena (paradoxes) are phenomena where “intuition always submerges the expectation of the intention,” and where “givenness not only entirely envelops manifestation but, surpassing it, modifies its common characteristics.”2 In Excess defines them as those “where the duality between intention (signification) and intuition (fulfillment) certainly remains, as well as the noetic-noematic correlation, but where, in contrast to poor and common phenomena, intuition gives (itself) in exceeding what the concept (signification, intentionality, aim, and so on) can foresee of it and show.”3 In other words, saturated phenomena disrupt the fulfilment of an intentional aim in intuition, not because intuition is lacking but because it is excessive. Marion goes on to comment: “they are saturated phenomena in that constitution encounters there an intuitive givenness that cannot be granted a univocal sense in return. It must be allowed, then, to overflow with many meanings, or an infinity of meanings, each equally legitimate and rigorous, without managing either to unify them or to organize them.”4
