Postliminary Directions

This concluding chapter examines how certain developments of phenomenology show an attempt to transform the description of the appearing of phenomena, understood as “givenness,” into a manifestation of a gesture of giving, and thus, through a gradual process of transfer, to shift from the field of knowledge to the realm of an enigmatic oblativity capable of being granted religious as well as moral valence. The position presented in this chapter keeps a distance from this kind of amalgamation. By establishing a clear distinction among different orders of the gift that cannot be placed on the same level, it makes it impossible to view the determinations of one of those levels as relevant to an assessment of the others. The chapter then argues that reciprocity involves forms of logic or requirements situated in different fields of questions that should not be confused with one another. It was thus necessary to present propositions and to engage in a reconstruction.