Episteme zetoumene. Quale fenomenologia per la scienza sempre ricercata?

“As many figures in phenomenology as in metaphysics” is a saying that effectively sums up the relationship between these two disciplines, and the fact that it is expressed in different figures is a widely accepted and studied assumption. Recently, this relationship has been questioned in the debate between some protagonists of French phenomenology, namely Jean-Luc Marion and Jocelyn Benoist, and in their discussion of a key point in phenomenology, the donné/given. Starting from the dispute about the given that involved the two philosophers, the relationship between phenomenology and metaphysics will be repeated, using the Aristotelian expression “episteme zetoumene” – (that is the “desired” or “sought” science); an expression that could be applied not only to metaphysics but also to phenomenology. In order to do this, and to show that both metaphysics and phenomenology are “desired” and “sought” sciences, it will be shown how both can be rethought thanks to the prefix “meta-”: metaphysics through the figures that come to it from the unfolding of the “fonction meta-”, phenomenology unfolding from the donné/given and its possible implication with “meta-”.