Gabriel Marcel (1889–1973) was a philosopher, drama critic, playwright and musician.

He converted to Catholicism in
1929 and his philosophy was later described as “Christian Existentialism” (most famously in Jean-Paul Sartre's
“Existentialism is a Humanism”) a term he initially endorsed but later repudiated. In addition to his numerous
philosophical publications, he was the author of some thirty dramatic works. Marcel gave the Gifford Lectures in
Aberdeen in 1949–1950, which appeared in print as the two-volume The Mystery of Being, and the William James
Lectures at Harvard in 1961–1962, which were collected and published as The Existential Background of Human
Dignity.

1. Biographical Sketch
Marcel was born in 1889. His mother died when he was only four, and Marcel was raised by his father and aunt, who
later married. He excelled in school, but did so without enjoying his studies prior to his encounter with philosophy. He
associated with many of the prominent philosophers of his day, in part due to his hosting of the famous “Friday
evenings.” Paul Ricoeur, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean Wahl, Simone de Beauvoir, Nicolas Berdyaev and Jean-Paul Sartre
were among the many noted philosophers who attended these gatherings at one time or another. These informal
meetings were an occasion for engaged thinkers from a variety of perspectives to discuss together various
philosophical themes, frequently ones Marcel himself was working on that week. After passing his agrégation in 1910,
he taught philosophy intermittently in Sens, Paris, and Montpellier; however, his main professional occupations were
that of drama critic (for Europe nouvelle and later for Nouvelles littéraires) and editor (for the Feux croisés series at
Plon).
Marcel's philosophical legacy includes lectures, journal entries and dramatic works in addition to more orthodox
philosophical expression in essays and monographs. Of these various genres, Marcel was perhaps most pleased with
his dramatic works. In fact, reading between the lines of his autobiographical remarks, one can discern some
puzzlement and no small amount of frustration at the success of his philosophical works and the relative obscurity of
his dramatic works. Complicating the diverse expression of his ideas is the fact that Marcel was a consciously
unsystematic philosopher, something he realized as early as the publication of his Journal métaphysique (1927). [1]
Nevertheless, while the diverse expression of his thought and the related lack of systematicity cause some difficulty for
those interested in Marcel's work, the main themes of his thought are present in many of his works. Especially
noteworthy are: The Mystery of Being, Creative Fidelity, Homo Viator, Being and Having, Tragic Wisdom and
Beyond and the concise “On the Ontological Mystery.”
Marcel's philosophical methodology was unique, although it bears some resemblance to both existentialism and
phenomenology broadly construed. He insisted that philosophy begin with concrete experience rather than
abstractions. To this end he makes constant use of examples in order to ground the philosophical ideas he is
investigating. The method itself consists in “working…up from life to thought and then down from thought to life
again, so that [one] may try to throw more light upon life” (Marcel 1951a, p. 41). Thus, this philosophy is a sort of
“description bearing upon the structures which reflection elucidates starting from experience” (Marcel 1962a, p. 180).
In addition, Marcel expressed a refreshing preference for philosophizing in ordinary language. He maintained that “we
should employ current forms of ordinary language which distort our experiences far less than the elaborate expressions
in which philosophical language is crystallized” (Marcel 1965, p. 158).
Marcel was consistently critical of Cartesianism, especially the epistemological problems with which Cartesianism is
mainly concerned (such as the problem of skepticism). Like many of the existentialists, his critique was motivated by a
rejection of that account of the nature of the self which was assumed in Descartes’ overall approach to the question of
knowledge, and how the mind comes to know reality. The Cartesian picture of the self assumes that the self is a
discrete entity with a neatly defined “inside” and “outside,” so that our ideas, which are “inside,” can be fully
understood without reference to the world, which is “outside.” “Cartesianism implies a severance . . . between intellect
and life; its result is a depreciation of the one, and an exaltation of the other, both arbitrary” (Marcel, 1949, p. 170).
Marcel agreed with other thinkers in the existentialist tradition, such as Heidegger, that the Cartesian view of the self is
not ontologically basic for the human subject because it is not a presentation of how the self actually is. Part of
Marcel’s task is to try to reveal phenomenologically the true nature of the subject, which will have implications for
many philosophical issues, including those relating to the nature of knowledge. However, on the issue of the true
nature of the subject, Marcel differs from both Heidegger and Sartre; indeed, his views are closer to those of Jewish
philosopher, Martin Buber, than they are to many of the existentialists.
2. The Broken World and the Functional Person
In line with his preference for concrete philosophy that speaks in ordinary language, Marcel begins many of his
philosophical essays with an observation about life. One of his central observations about life and experience, from
which he is able to derive many of the philosophical distinctions that follow, is that we live in a “broken world.” A
world in which “ontological exigence”—if it is acknowledged at all—is silenced by an unconscious relativism or by a
monism that discounts the personal, “ignores the tragic and denies the transcendent” (Marcel 1995, p. 15). The
characterization of the world as broken does not necessarily imply that there was a time when the world was intact. It
would be more correct to emphasize that the world we live in is essentially broken, broken in essence, in addition to
having been further fractured by events in history. The observation is intended to point out that we find ourselves hic et
nunc in a world that is broken. This situation is characterized by a refusal (or inability) to reflect, a refusal to imagine
and a denial of the transcendent (Marcel 1951a, pp. 36–37). Although many things contribute to the “brokenness” of
the world, the hallmark of its modern manifestation is “the misplacement of the idea of function” (Marcel 1995, p. 11).
“I should like to start,” Marcel says, “with a sort of global and intuitive characterization of the man in whom the sense
of the ontological—the sense of being, is lacking, or, to speak more correctly, the man who has lost awareness of this
sense” (Marcel 1995, p. 9). This person, the one who has lost awareness of the sense of the ontological, the one whose
capacity to wonder has atrophied to the extent of becoming a vestigial trait, is an example of the influence of the
misapplication of the idea of function. Marcel uses the example of a subway token distributor. This person has a job
that is mindless, repetitive, and monotonous. The same function can be, and often is, completed by automated
machines. All day this person takes bills from commuters and returns a token and some change, repeating the same
process with the same denominations of currency, over and over. The other people with whom she interacts engage her
in only the most superficial and distant manner. In most cases, they do not speak to her and they do not make eye
contact. In fact, the only distinction the commuters make between such a person and the automatic, mechanical token
dispenser down the hall is to note which “machine” has the shorter line. The way in which these commuters interact
with this subway employee is clearly superficial and less than desirable. However, Marcel's point is more subtle.
What can the inner reality of such a person be like? What began as tedious work slowly becomes infuriating in its
monotony, but eventually passes into a necessity that is accepted with indifference, until even the sense of
dissatisfaction with the pure functionalism of the task is lost. The unfortunate truth is that such a person may come to
see herself, at first unconsciously, as merely an amalgamation of the functions she performs. There is the function of
dispensing tokens at work, the function of spouse and parent at home, the function of voting as a citizen of a given
country, etc. Her life operates on a series of “time-tables” that indicate when certain functions—such as the yearly
maintenance trip to the doctor, or the yearly vacation to rest and recuperate—are to be exercised. In this person the
sense of wonder and the exigence for the transcendent may slowly begin to wither and die. In the most extreme cases,
a person who has come to identify herself with her functions ceases to even have any intuition that the world is broken.
A corollary of the functionalism of the modern broken world is its highly technical nature. Marcel characterizes a
world such as ours—in which everything and everyone becomes viewed in terms of function, and in which all
questions are approached with technique—as one that is dominated by its “technics.” This is evident in the dependence
on technology, the immediate deferral to the technological as the answer to any problem, and the tendency to think of
technical reasoning as the only mode of access to the truth. However, it is clear that there are some “problems” that
cannot be addressed with technique, and this is disquieting for persons who have come to rely on technics. While
technology undoubtedly has its proper place and use, the deification of technology leads to despair when we realize the
ultimate inefficacy of technics regarding important existential questions. It is precisely this misapplication of the idea
of function and the dependence on technics that leads to the despair that is so prevalent in the broken world.
Obviously, we cannot turn back the clock with regard to technological progress, and Marcel acknowledges that
technology is not necessarily detrimental to the life of the spirit; nevertheless, it often is, because: “does not the
invasion of our life by techniques today tend to substitute satisfaction at a material level for spiritual joy,
dissatisfaction at a material level for spiritual disquiet?” (Marcel 1985, p. 57).
3. Ontological Exigence[2]
“What defines man,” claims Marcel, “are his exigencies” (Marcel 1973, p. 34). Nevertheless, theseexigencies can be
smothered, perhaps even silenced, by despair. Such is the case in the example of the “functionalized” person. The
broken world can smother transcendent exigencies, leaving only quotidian, functional needs intact. Ontological
exigence, the need for transcendence, is linked to a certain dissatisfaction—one that is all the more troubling because
one is unable to soothe this dissatisfaction by one's own powers. However, without a feeling that something is amiss,
without the feeling of dissatisfaction, ontological exigence withers. This is why the functional person, the person who
no longer even notices that the world is broken, is described as having lost the awareness of the ontological and the
need for transcendence. In the face of this potential despair, Marcel claims that:
Being is—or should be—necessary. It is impossible that everything should be reduced to a play of successive
appearances which are inconsistent with each other… or, in the words of Shakespeare, to “a tale told by an idiot.” I
aspire to participate in this being, in this reality—and perhaps this aspiration is already a degree of participation,
however rudimentary. (Marcel 1995, p. 15)[3]
Thus, ontological exigence is a need and a demand for some level of coherence in the cosmos and for some
understanding of our place and role within this coherence. It is the combination of wonder and the attendant desire, not
to understand the entire cosmos, but to understand something of one's own place in it.[4] Note that, for Marcel,
ontological exigence is not merely a “wish” for being or coherence, but is an “interior urge” or “appeal.” “Otherwise
stated, the [ontological] exigence is not reducible to some psychological state, mood, or attitude a person has; it is
rather a movement of the human spirit that is inseparable from being human” (Keen 1984, p. 105).
4. Transcendence
Marcel is very clear that the term “transcendence” has, in his view, become degraded in modern philosophy.
Transcendence cannot mean merely “going beyond” without any further specification. It must retain the tension of the
traditional distinction between the immanent and the transcendent, one that emphasizes a vertical rather than a
horizontal going beyond, a transcendence toward a height, a trans-ascendence.[5] Although the transcendent is
juxtaposed with the immanent, Marcel insists that “transcendent” cannot mean “transcending experience.” “There must
exist a possibility of having an experience of the transcendent as such, and unless that possibility exists the word can
have no meaning” (Marcel 1951a, p. 46). The tendency to discount the idea of experiencing transcendence is the result
of an objective view of experience. However, experience is not an object and therefore it cannot be viewed objectively.
Speaking metaphorically, the essence of experience is not an “absorbing into oneself,” as in the case of taste, but “a
straining oneself towards something, as when, for instance, during the night we attempt to get a distinct perception of
some far-off noise” (Marcel 1951a, p. 47). Thus, while Marcel insists on the possibility of experiencing the
transcendent, he does not thereby mean that the transcendent is comprehensible.
There is an order where the subject finds himself in the presence of something entirely beyond his grasp. I would add
that if the word “transcendent” has any meaning it is here—it designates the absolute, unbridgeable chasm yawning
between the subject and being, insofar as being evades every attempt to pin it down. (Marcel 1973, p. 193)
5. Being and Having
Marcel discusses being in a variety of contexts; however, one of the more illustrative points of entry into this issue is
the distinction between being and having.[6] In some cases this distinction is one that is obvious and therefore not
particularly illuminating. For example, most people would readily acknowledge a difference between having a house
and being hospitable. However, there are other cases where the distinction between having something and being
something is much more significant. For example, when we hope, we do not have hope. We are hope. Similarly, we do
not have a belief. We are a belief.
Marcel's hallmark illustration of being and having is one that actually straddles the distinction between them: “my
body.” My body, insofar as it is my body, is both something that I have and something that I am, and cannot be
adequately accounted for using either of these descriptions alone. I can look at my body in a disassociated manner and
see it instrumentally. However, in doing so, in distancing myself from it in order to grasp it qua object, qua something
I have, it ceases to be “my” body. I can have “a” body, but not “my” body. As soon as I make the connection that the
body in question is my body, not a body, it can no longer be something that I have pure and simple—this body also is
me, it is what I am. On the other hand, it cannot be said that I simply am my body either. I can dispose of my body in
certain circumstances by treating it instrumentally. A person who loses a limb in an accident is not less of a person
and, therefore, there is a sense in which our bodies are objects that we have.
The ambiguous role played by my body not only points out the distinction between being and having, but also shows
that we relate to other things and persons differently in these two modes. Having corresponds to things that are
completely external to me. I have things that I possess, that I can dispose of—and this should make it clear that I
cannot “have,” for example, another person. Having implies this possession because “having always implies an
obscure notion of assimilation” (Marcel 1949, p. 83). While the encounter with otherness takes place in terms of
assimilation when speaking of having, the encounter with otherness (e.g., other persons) can also take place on the
level of being. In this case Marcel maintains that the encounter is not one that is purely external and, as such, it is
played out in terms of presence and participation rather than assimilation.
Both being and having are legitimate ways to encounter things in the world; however, the misapplication of these two
modes of comportment can have disastrous consequences.
6. Problem and Mystery
The notion that we live in a broken world is used—along with the person who is characteristic of the broken world, the
functionalized person—to segue into one of Marcel's central thematic distinctions: the distinction between problem and
mystery. He states that the broken world is one that is “on the one hand, riddled with problems and, on the other,
determined to allow no room for mystery” (Marcel 1995, p. 12). The denial of the mysterious is symptomatic of the
modern broken world and is tied to its technical character, which only acknowledges that which technique can address:
the problematic. The distinction between problem and mystery is one that hinges, like much of Marcel's thought, on
the notion of participation.
A problem is something which I meet, which I find completely before me, but which I can therefore lay siege to and
reduce. But a mystery is something in which I am myself involved, and it can therefore only be thought of as a sphere
where the distinction between what is in me and what is before me loses its meaning and initial validity. (Marcel 1949,
p. 117)
A problem is a question in which I am not involved, in which the identity of the person asking the question is not an
issue. In the realm of the problematic, it makes no difference who is asking the question because all of the relevant
information is “before” the questioner. As such, a problem is something that bars my way, placing an obstacle in front
of me that must be overcome. In turn, the overcoming of a problem inevitably involves some technique, a technique
that could be, and often is, employed by any other person confronting the same problem. Thus the identity of the
questioner can be changed without altering the problem itself. This is why the modern broken world only sees the
problematic: the ‘problematic’ is that which can be addressed and solved with a technique, e.g., changing a flat tire on
an automobile or downloading security software to fix a virus on one's computer.
When I am dealing with a problem, I am trying to discover a solution that can become common property, that
consequently can, at least in theory, be rediscovered by anybody at all. But…this idea of a validity for “anybody at all”
or of a thinking in general has less and less application the more deeply one penetrates into the inner courts of
philosophy… (Marcel 1951a, p. 213)
Marcel often describes a mystery as a “problem that encroaches on its own data” (Marcel 1995, p. 19). Such a
“problem” is, in fact, meta-problematic; it is a question in which the identity of the questioner becomes an issue
itself—where, in fact, the questioner is involved in the question he or she is asking. On the level of the mysterious, the
identity of the questioner is tied to the question and, therefore, the questioner is not interchangeable. To change the
questioner would be to alter the question. It makes every difference who is asking the question when confronting a
mystery. Here, on the level of the mysterious, the distinctions “in-me” and “before-me” break down. Marcel insists
that mysteries can be found in the question of Being (e.g., my ontological exigence), the union of the body and soul,
the “problem” of evil and—perhaps the archetypal examples of mystery—freedom and love. For example, I cannot
question Being as if my being is not at issue in the questioning. The question of being and the question of who I am
(my being) cannot be addressed separately. These two questions are somehow incoherent if approached as problems;
however, taken together, their mysterious character is revealed and they cancel themselves out qua problems.
Another example is the “problem of evil” (Marcel, 1995, pp. 19-20). Marcel distinguishes between what philosophers
refer to as the existential problem of evil (how a particular individual responds to an experience of evil in his or her
own life), and the philosophical problem of evil (how a philosopher might think about the “problem” of evil—how evil
is to be reconciled with the existence of an all-good and all-powerful God, for instance). He notes that the existential
problem cannot be fully discussed at the philosophical level precisely because the experience of the questioner is left
out. He notes that, “Evil which is only stated or observed is no longer evil which is suffered: in fact, it ceases to be
evil. In reality, I can only grasp it as evil in the measure in which it touches me—that is to say, in the measure in which
I am involved…being ‘involved’ is the fundamental fact” (Marcel, 1995, p. 19). In addition, the philosopher seeks
solutions to the problem of evil that can be presented to everyone in a logically objective manner, so almost by
definition these solutions cannot fully address the existential question. Marcel also proposes that sometimes
philosophers can fall into the error of thinking that the philosophical problem should be the main way to approach the
experience of evil, and as a result can fail to appreciate the necessity of helping people deal with the existential
problem. In general, this failure is something we can observe in many different areas of primary reflection, including
academic disciplines, which sometimes lose touch with the experiences that gave rise to the problems the disciplines
are supposed to be addressing.
Unlike problems, mysteries are not solved with techniques and therefore cannot be answered the same way by different
persons—one technique, one solution, will not apply in the different cases presented by different persons. Indeed, it is
questionable if mysteries are open to “solutions” at all. Nevertheless, it would be incorrect to call the mysterious a gap
in our knowledge in the same way that a problem is. “The mysterious is not the unknowable, the unknowable is only
the limiting case of the problematic” (Marcel 1949, p. 118).
Although a mystery may be insoluble, it is not senseless; and while its inexpressibility makes it difficult to fully
describe in communicable knowledge, it can still be spoken of in a suggestive way (Marcel 1964, xxv). Marcel notes in
a journal entry dated December 18th, 1932 that:
The metaproblematic is a participation on which my reality as a subject is built… and reflection will show that such a
participation, if it is genuine, cannot be a solution. If it were it would cease to be a participation in a transcendent
reality, and would become, instead, an interpolation into transcendent reality, and would be degraded in the process…
(Marcel 1949, p. 114)
Referring back to the idea of a broken world, the technical and the problematic are questions that are addressed with
only “part” of a person. The full person is not engaged in the technical because a person's self, her identity, is not at
issue. “At the root of having [and problems, and technics] there lies a certain specialization of specification of the self,
and this is connected with [a] partial alienation of the self…” (Marcel 1949, p. 172). Problems are addressed
impersonally, in a detached manner, while mysteries demand participation, involvement. Although some problems can
be reflected on in such a way that they become mysterious, all mysteries can be reflected on in such a way that the
mystery is degraded and becomes merely problematic.
7. Primary and Secondary Reflection
The distinction between two kinds of questions—problem and mystery—brings to light two different kinds of thinking
or reflection. The problematic is addressed with thinking that is detached and technical, while the mysterious is
encountered in reflection that is involved, participatory and decidedly non-technical. Marcel calls these two kinds of
thinking “primary” and “secondary” reflection. Primary reflection examines its object by abstraction, by analytically
breaking it down into its constituent parts. It is concerned with definitions, essences and technical solutions to
problems. In contrast, secondary reflection is synthetic; it unifies rather than divides. “Roughly, we can say that where
primary reflection tends to dissolve the unity of experience which is first put before it, the function of secondary
reflection is essentially recuperative; it reconquers that unity” (Marcel 1951a, p. 83).
In the most general sense, reflection is nothing other than attention brought to bear on something. However, different
objects require different kinds of reflection. In keeping with their respective application to problem and mystery,
primary reflection is directed at that which is outside of me or “before me,” while secondary reflection is directed at
that which is not merely before me—that is, either that which is in me, which I am, or those areas where the
distinctions “in me” and “before me” tend to break down. The parallels between having and being, problem and
mystery, and primary and secondary reflection are clear, each pair helping to illuminate the others.
Thus, secondary reflection is one important aspect of our access to the self. It is the properly philosophical mode of
reflection because, in Marcel's view, philosophy must return to concrete situations if it is to merit the name
“philosophy.” These difficult reflections are “properly philosophical” insofar as they lead to a more truthful, more
intimate communication with both myself and with any other person whom these reflections include (Marcel 1951a,
pp. 79–80). Secondary reflection, which recoups the unity of experience, points the way toward a fuller understanding
of the participation alluded to in examples of the mysterious.
Marcel argues that secondary reflection helps us to recover the experiences of the mysterious in human life. Secondary
reflection is best understood as an act of critical reflection on primary reflection, and as a process of recovery of the
“mysteries of being.” It begins as the act of critical reflection (a “second” reflection) on ordinary conceptual thinking
(primary reflection). This “second” or critical reflection enables the philosopher to discover that the categories of
primary reflection are not adequate to provide a true account of the nature of the self, or of the self's most profound
experiences. Here secondary reflection involves ordinary reflection, but unlike ordinary reflection, it is a critical
reflection directed at the nature of thought itself. The act of secondary reflection then culminates in a discovery or in
an assurance of the realm of mystery, and motivates human actions appropriate to this realm. This discovery is a kind
of intuitive grasp or experiential insight into various experiences that are non conceptual, and that conceptual
knowledge can never fully express (Sweetman, 2008, pp. 55-60). Marcel therefore develops the view that human
beings are fundamentally beings-in-situations first, and then thinking or reflective beings second. Yet, in developing a
critique of the obsession with primary reflection (with the world of “having”), he is not advocating any kind of
relativism, or even suggesting that conceptual knowledge is not important; his aim is to illustrate where it fits into the
analysis of the human subject, and to point out that it is important not to overstate its range or its value. In presenting
these themes, Marcel wishes to do justice to, and to maintain the priority of, human subjectivity and individuality
while at the same time avoiding the relativism and skepticism that has tended to accompany such notions. In this way,
many of his admirers believe that he avoids the relativistic and skeptical excesses that have plagued recent European
thought since Heidegger and Sartre.
8. The Spirit of Abstraction
Although secondary reflection is able to recoup the unity of experience that primary reflection dissects, it is possible
that secondary reflection can be frustrated. One example of the frustration of secondary reflection and the mysterious is
the functional person; however, this is really just one example of a more general phenomenon: the person who has
given in to the “spirit of abstraction.” When we engage in primary reflection without proceeding to the synthesizing,
recollecting act of secondary reflection, we fall victim to what Marcel calls the spirit of abstraction. “As soon as we
accord to any category, isolated from all other categories, an arbitrary primacy, we are victims of the spirit of
abstraction” (Marcel 1962b, pp. 155–156).[7]
Abstraction, which is in essence the kind of thinking that characterizes primary reflection, is not always bad per se.
However, neither is it, always an “essentially intellectual” operation (Marcel 1962b, p. 156). That is, contrary to what
the successes of science and technology might tell us, we may succumb to the spirit of abstraction out of passional
reasons rather than intellectual expediency. Abstraction—which is always abstraction from an embodied, concrete
existence—can overcome our concrete existence and we may come to view abstracted elements of existence as if they
were independent. As Marcel describes it: “it can happen that the mind, yielding to a sort of fascination, ceases to be
aware of these prior conditions that justify abstraction and deceives itself about the nature of what is, in itself, nothing
more than a method” (Marcel 1962b, p. 156). The significance of this phenomenon for Marcel would be difficult to
overstate—indeed, in Man Against Mass Society, Marcel argues that the spirit of abstraction is inherently
disingenuous and violent, and a significant factor in the making of war—and there is a sense in which his whole
philosophical project is an “obstinate and untiring battle against the spirit of abstraction” (Marcel 1962b, p. 1).[8]
9. Disponibilité and Indisponibilité
Marcel emphasizes two general ways of comporting ourselves towards others that can be used as barometers for
intersubjective relationships: disponibilité and indisponibilité. These words—generally translated as either
“availability” and “unavailability” or, less frequently, as “disposability” and “non-disposability”—bear meanings for
Marcel that do not fully come across in English. Therefore, in addition to the sense of availability and unavailability,
Marcel suggests the addition of the concepts of “handiness” and “unhandiness” to his English readers in an attempt to
clarify his meaning. Handiness and unhandiness refer to the availability of one's “resources”—material, emotional,
intellectual and spiritual. Thus, the term disponibilité refers to the measure in which I am available to someone, the
state of having my resources at hand to offer; and this availability or unavailability of resources is a general state or
disposition. While it may appear that there is the possibility of a selfish allocation of one's resources, the truth is that
when resources are not available, their inaccessibility affects both the other and the self. Marcel comments frequently
on the interconnected nature of the treatment of others and the state of the self.
Indisponibilité can manifest itself in any number of ways; however, “unavailability is invariably rooted in some
measure of alienation” (Marcel 1995, p. 40). Pride is an instructive example ofindisponibilité, although the same state
of non-disposability would also exist in a person who has come to view herself in functional terms, or one who is
blinded by a purely technical worldview. Pride is not an exaggerated opinion of oneself arising from self-love, which
Marcel insists is really only vanity; rather, pride consists in believing that one is self-sufficient (Marcel 1995, p. 32). It
consists in drawing one's strength solely from oneself. “The proud man is cut off from a certain kind of communion
with his fellow men, which pride, acting as a principle of destruction tends to break down. Indeed, this destructiveness
can be equally well directed against the self; pride is in no way incompatible with self-hate…” (Marcel 1995, p. 32).
For the person who is indisponible, other people are reduced to “examples” or “cases” of genus “other person” rather
than being encountered qua other as unique individuals. Instead of encountering the other person as a ‘Thou’, the other
is encountered as a ‘He’ or ‘She’, or even as an ‘It’.
If I treat a ‘Thou’as a ‘He’, I reduce the other to being only nature; an animated object which works in some ways and
not in others. If, on the contrary, I treat the other as ‘Thou’, I treat him and apprehend him qua freedom. I apprehend
him qua freedom because he is also freedom and not only nature. (Marcel 1949, pp. 106–107)
When I treat the other person as a He or She, it is because he or she is kept at arm’s length but within my grasp, outside
of the circle that I form with myself in my cogito but inside the circle of “my world.”
The other, in so far as he is other, only exists for me in so far as I am open to him, in so far as he is a Thou. But I am
only open to him in so far as I cease to form a circle with myself, inside which I somehow place the other, or rather his
idea; for inside this circle, the other becomes the idea of the other, and the idea of the other is no longer the other qua
other, but the other qua related to me… (Marcel 1949, p. 107)
When I treat the other person as a ‘Her’, I treat her, not as a presence, but as absent. However, when I treat the other as
a ‘He’ or ‘She’ rather than a ‘Thou’, I become incapable of seeing myself as a ‘Thou’. In deprecating the other I
deprecate myself.
If I treat the other person as purely external to me, as a ‘Her’, a generic Ms. X, I encounter her “in fragments” as it
were. I encounter various aspects of the other person, elements that might be used to fill out a questionnaire or form
(name, occupation, age, etc.). I am not present to the other person and I am closed off and indifferent to the presence
she offers me. However, in encountering the other person in this manner—not as another person but as a case or
example of certain functions, roles or characteristics—I myself cease to be a person, but take on the role, speaking
metaphorically, of the pen that would record these disparate elements onto the form. Any other person could encounter
the other in this impersonal manner. If this is the case, I myself have become interchangeable, replaceable. I have
ceased to encounter her in the absolutely unique communion of our two persons. This functional view of the other and,
consequently, of the self, is a direct result of the “spirit of abstraction.” When the other is encountered as a generic
case, I who encounter am myself a generic case in the encounter. But the situation can be otherwise.
In contrast, “the characteristic of the soul which is present and at the disposal of others is that it cannot think in terms
of cases; in its eyes there are no cases at all” (Marcel 1995, p. 41). The person who is disponible, who is available or
disposable to others, has an entirely different experience of her place in the world: she acknowledges her
interdependence with other people. Relationships ofdisponibilité are characterized by presence and communication
between persons qua other, quafreedom—a communication and communion between persons who transcend their
separation without merging into a unity, that is, while remaining separate to some degree. “It should be obvious at once
that a being of this sort is not an autonomous whole, is not in [the] expressive English phrase, self-contained; on the
contrary such a being is open and exposed, as unlike as can be to a compact impenetrable mass” (Marcel 1951a, p.
145). To be disponible to the other is to be present to and for her, to put one's resources at her disposal, and to be open
and permeable to her.
It will perhaps be made clearer if I say the person who is at my disposal is the one who is capable of being with me
with the whole of himself when I am in need; while the one who is not at my disposal seems merely to offer me a
temporary loan raised on his resources. For the one I am a presence; for the other I am an object. (Marcel 1995, p.
40).[9]
10. “With” (avec)
Thus, while I encounter objects in a manner that is technical and objectifying, the encounter with the other person
offers another, unique possibility: I can have a relationship “with” another person.
When I put the table beside the chair I do not make any difference to the table or the chair, and I can take one or the
other away without making any difference; but my relationship with you makes a difference to both of us, and so does
any interruption of the relationship make a difference. (Marcel 1951a, p. 181)
The word “with,” taken with its full metaphysical implication, corresponds neither to a relationship of separation and
exteriority, nor to a relationship of unity and inherence. Rather, “with” expresses the essence of genuine coesse, i.e. of
pluralism, of separation with communion (Marcel 1995, p. 39). As indisponibilité is illustrated with the example of
pride, disponibilité is best illustrated in the relations of love, hope and fidelity.
Marcel—contra Kant—does not shy away from declaring that the participation in a relationship “with” someone has a
significant affective element. It is not knowledge of the other that initially binds us to another person—though we may
indeed grow to know something of the other—but “fraternity,” the sense that the other is beset by joys and sorrows
common to the human family.[10] It is that which allows us, upon seeing the misfortune of another, to say, “There, but
for the grace of God, go I.” To go to someone's side or to assist another out of a sense of “duty” is precisely not to be
present to her. [11] The person who is disponible does not demure from saying that she truly does desire the best for
the other person and that she truly desires to share something of herself with the other (Marcel 1964, p. 154). In fact,
because disponibilité is only a philosophical way of describing what we mean by love and trust, disponibilité is
inconceivable without this affective element.
Yet, it is not enough for one person to be disponible in order for the full communion of disponibilitéto occur. It is
entirely possible for one person to come to an encounter in a completely open and available manner, only to be
rebuffed by the total unavailability of the other person. Ideally, a relationship of availability must include an element of
reciprocity. However, the fact that reciprocity is necessary in an intersubjective relationship does not mean that
reciprocity may be demanded of such a relationship. Disponibilité does not insist on its rights or make any claim on the
other whatsoever. It is analogous to the situation of “a being awaiting a gift or favor from another being but only on the
grounds of his liberality, and that he is the first to protest that the favor he is asking is a grace [que cette grâce
demandée est une grâce], that is to say the exact opposite of an obligation” (Marcel 1962a, p. 55). Nevertheless, the
fact that disponibilité does not demand reciprocity and that some kind of relationship is indeed possible without such
reciprocity does not alter the fact that such reciprocity must be present if the relationship is to fully flower. “One might
therefore say that there is a hierarchy of choices, or rather invocations, ranging from the call upon another which is like
ringing a bell for a servant to quite the other sort of call which is really like a kind of prayer” (Marcel 1951a, p. 179).
Marcel characterizes disponibilité as charity bound up with presence, as the gift of oneself. And therefore, at the
extreme limit, disponibilité would consist in a total spiritual availability that would be pure charity, unconditional love
and disposability. However, a problem arises here insofar as Marcel has insisted on an affective element in
disponibilité. How is such a gift of self possible for temporal beings, persons for whom the vicissitudes of time may
alter feelings or opinion of the other?
11. Opinion, Conviction, Belief
Marcel draws a sharp distinction between opinion and belief. Opinion always concerns that which we do not know,
that with which we are not familiar. It exists in a position between impression and affirmation. It is often the case that
opinions have a “false” basis, which is most clear in case of stereotypes and prejudices (“everybody knows that…”).
Furthermore, opinions are invariably “external” to the things to which they refer. I have an opinion about something
only when I disengage myself from it and hold it at “arm's length.” Nevertheless, we hold or maintain these opinions in
front of others, and given the elusive foundations on which these opinions are based, it is easy to see how an opinion
slides slowly from an impression we have to a claim that we make. This transition invariably takes place as part of an
absence of reflection on the given subject and the entrenchment of the opinion due to repetition. Our opinions are often
“unshakable” precisely because of the lack of reflection associated with them.
While opinions are unreflective and external, convictions—which are more akin to belief than opinion—are the result
of extensive reflection and invariably concern things to which one feels closely tied. Like opinions that have
entrenched themselves to the point of becoming actual claims, convictions are felt to be definitive, beyond
modification. However, when I claim that nothing can change my conviction, I must either affirm that I have already
anticipated all possible future scenarios and no possible event can change my conviction, or affirm that whatever
events do occur—anticipated or unanticipated—they will not shake my conviction. The first possibility is impossible.
The second possibility is based on a decision, a decision to remain constant whatever may come. However, upon
reflection such a decision seems as over-confidant as the claim to have anticipated the future. By what right can I
affirm that my inner conviction will not change in any circumstance? To do so is to imply that, in the future, I will
cease to reflect on my conviction. It seems that all I am able to say is that my conviction is such that, at the present
moment, I cannot imagine an alteration in it.
Belief is akin to conviction; it is, however, distinguished by its object. Marcel insists in many places that proper use of
the term “belief” applies not to things “that” we believe, but to things “in which” we believe. Belief is not “belief
that…” but is “belief in…” Belief that might be better characterized as a conviction rather than a belief; however, to
believe in something is to extend credit to it, to place something at the disposal of that in which we believe. The notion
of credit placed at the disposal of the other is another way of speaking about disponibilité. “I am in no way separable
from that which I place at the disposal of this X… Actually, the credit I extend is, in a way, myself. I lend myself to X.
We should note at once that this is an essentially mysterious act” (Marcel 1951a, p. 134). This is what distinguishes
conviction from belief. Conviction refers to the X, takes a position with regard to X, but does not bind itself to X.
While I have an opinion, I am a belief—for belief changes the way I am in the world, changes my being. We can now
see how belief refers to the other, and how it is connected to disponibilité: belief always applies to “personal or supra-
personal reality” (Marcel 1951a, p. 135). It always involves a thou to whom I extend credit—a credit that puts myself
at the disposal of the thou—and thus arises the problem of fidelity.[12]
12. Creative Fidelity
The discussion of “creative fidelity” is an excellent place to find a unification, or at least a conjunction, of the various
themes and ideas in Marcel's non-systematic thought. Ontologicalexigence, being, mystery, second reflection, and
disponibilité all inform the discussion of creative fidelity, which in turn attempts to illustrate how we can experience
these mysterious realities in more or less concrete terms.
The “problem” posed by fidelity is that of constancy. However, fidelity—a belief in someone—requires presence in
addition to constancy over time, and presence implies an affective element. Mere constancy over time is not enough
because “a fulfillment of on obligation contre-coeur is devoid of love and cannot be identified with fidelity” (Marcel
1964, xxii). Thus, the question is posed as follows. How are we able to remain disponible over time? How can we
provide a guarantee of our “belief in” someone? Perhaps the best way to address this complex idea is to address its
constituent parts: the problem posed by fidelity and the answer given by creativity.
The extension of credit to another is a commitment, an act whereby I commit myself and place myself at the disposal
of the other. In extending credit to the other I am also placing my trust in her, implicitly hoping that she proves worthy
of the credit I extend to her. However, we sometimes misjudge others in thinking too highly of them and at other times
misjudge by underestimation. Recalling that there is an affective element of spontaneity involved in disponibilité, how
can I assure that I will remain faithful to my present belief in the other? Like the question of conviction over time, my
present fidelity to another can be questioned in terms of its durability. Though I presently feel inclined to credit the
other, to put myself at her disposal, how can I assure that this feeling will not change tomorrow, next month, or next
year? Furthermore, because I have given myself to this other person, placed myself at her disposal, when she falls short
of my hopes for her—hopes implicit in my extension of credit to her—I am wounded.
However, the “failure” of the other to conform to my hopes is not necessarily the fault of the other. My disappointment
or injury is frequently the result of my having assigned some definite, determinate quality to the other person or
defined her in terms of characteristics that, it turns out, she does not possess. However, by what right do I assign this
characteristic to her, and by what right do I judge her to be wanting? Such a judgment drastically oversteps—or
perhaps falls short of—the bounds of disponibilité. In doing so, it demonstrates clearly that I, from the outset, was
engaged in a relationship to my idea of the other—which has proved to be wrong—rather than with the other herself.
That is to say that this encounter was not with the other, but with myself. If I am injured by the failure of the other to
conform to an idea that I had of her, this is not indicative of a defect in the other; it is the result of my inappropriate
attempt to determine her by insisting that she conform to my idea. When I begin to doubt my commitment to another
person, the vulnerability of my “belief in X” to these doubts is directly proportional to the residue of opinion still in it
(Marcel 1964, p. 136).
Nevertheless, practically speaking, there are innumerable times when my hopes for the other are not in fact met, when
my extension of credit to the other—which is nothing less then the disposability of myself—results only in a demand
for “more” by the other. Such situations invariably tempt me to reevaluate the credit I have put at the disposal of the
other and to reassert the question of durability concerning the affective element of my availability to the other. Thus,
again, the mystery of fidelity is also the question of commitment, of commitment over time
“How can I test the initial assurance that is somehow the ground of my fidelity? …this appears to lead to a vicious
circle. In principle, to commit myself I must know myself, but the fact is I really only know myself when I have
committed myself” (Marcel 1964, p. 163). However, what appears to be a vicious circle from an external point of view
is experienced from within, by the person who is disponible, as a growth and an ascending. Reflection qua primary
reflection attempts to make the experience of commitment understandable in general terms that would be applicable to
anyone, but this can only subvert and destroy the reality of commitment, which is essentially personal and therefore,
accessible only to secondary reflection.
Returning to the question of durability over time, Marcel insists that, if there is a possible “assurance” of fidelity, it is
because “disposability and creativity are related ideas” (Marcel 1964, p. 53). To be disposable is to believe in the
other, to place myself at her disposal and to maintain the openness of disponibilité. “Creative fidelity” consists in
actively maintaining ourselves in a state of openness and permeability, in willing ourselves to remain open to the other
and open to the influx of the presence of the other.
The fact is that when I commit myself, I grant in principle that the commitment will not again be put into question.
And it is clear that this active volition not to question something again, intervenes as an essential element in the
determination of what in fact will be the case…it bids me to invent a certain modus vivendi…it is a rudimentary form
of creative fidelity. (Marcel 1964, p. 162)
The truest fidelity is creative, that is, a fidelity that creates the self in order to meet the demands of fidelity. Such
fidelity interprets the vicissitudes of “belief in…” as a temptation to infidelity and sees them in terms of a test of the
self rather than in terms of a betrayal by the other—if fidelity fails, it is my failure rather than the failure of the other.
However, this merely puts off the question of durability over time. Where does one find the strength to continue to
create oneself and meet the demands of fidelity? The fact is that, on the hither side of the ontological affirmation—and
the attendant appeal of Hope—fidelity is always open to doubt. I can always call into question the reality of the bond
that links me to another person, always begin to doubt the presence of the person to whom I am faithful, substituting
for her presence an idea of my own making. On the other hand, the more disposed I am toward the ontological
affirmation, to the affirmation of Being, the more I am inclined to see the failure of fidelity as my failure, resulting
from my insufficiency rather than that of the other.
Hence the ground of fidelity that necessarily seems precarious to us as soon as we commit ourselves to another who is
unknown, seems on the other hand unshakable when it is based not, to be sure, on a distinct apprehension of God as
someone other, but on a certain appeal delivered for the depths of my own insufficiency ad summam altitudinem…
This appeal presupposes a radical humility in the subject. (Marcel 1964, p. 167)
Thus, creative fidelity invariably touches upon hope. The only way in which an unbounded commitment on the part of
the subject is conceivable is if it draws strength from something more than itself, from an appeal to something greater,
something transcendent—and this appeal is hope. Can hope provide us with a foundation that allows humans—who
are radically contingent, frequently fickle, and generally weak—to make a commitment that is unconditional? Marcel
acknowledges, “Perhaps it should further be said that in fact fidelity can never be unconditional, except where it is
Faith, but we must add, however, that it aspires to unconditionality” (Marcel 1962a, p. 133).
13. Hope
Hope is the final guarantor of fidelity; it is that which allows me not to despair, that which gives me the strength to
continue to create myself in availability to the other. But this might appear to be nothing more than optimism—
frequently misplaced, as events too often reveal—that things will turn out for the best. Marcel insists that this is not the
case. Following now familiar distinctions, he makes a differentiation between the realm of fear and desire on one hand
and the realm of despair and hope on the other.
Fear and desire are anticipatory and focused respectively on the object of fear or desire. To desire is “to desire that X”
and to fear is “to fear that X.” Optimism exists in the domain of fear and desire because it imagines and anticipates a
favorable outcome. However, the essence of hope is not “to hope that X”, but merely “to hope…” The person who
hopes does not accept the current situation as final; however, neither does she imagine or anticipate the circumstance
that would deliver her from her plight, rather she merely hopes for deliverance. The more hope transcends any
anticipation of the form that deliverance would take, the less it is open to the objection that, in many cases, the hoped-
for deliverance does not take place. If I desire that my disease be cured by a given surgical procedure, it is very
possible that my desire might be thwarted. However, if I simply maintain myself in hope, no specific event (or absence
of event) need shake me from this hope.
This does not mean, however, that hope is inert or passive. Hope is not stoicism. Stoicism is merely the resignation of
a solitary consciousness. Hope is neither resigned, nor solitary. “Hope consists in asserting that there is at the heart of
being, beyond all data, beyond all inventories and all calculations, a mysterious principle which is in connivance with
me” (Marcel 1995, p. 28). While hope is patient and expectant, it remains active; and as such it might be characterized
as an “active patience.” The assertion contained in hope reveals a kinship with willing rather than desiring. “Inert
hope” would be an oxymoron.
No doubt the solitary consciousness can achieve resignation [stoicism], but it may well be here that this word actually
means nothing but spiritual fatigue. For hope, which is just the opposite of resignation, something more is required.
There can be no hope that does not constitute itself through a we and for a we. I would be tempted to say that all hope
is at the bottom choral. (Marcel 1973, p. 143)
Finally, it should be no surprise that “speaking metaphysically, the only genuine hope is hope in what does not depend
on ourselves, hope springing from humility and not from pride” (Marcel 1995, p. 32). And here is found yet another
aspect of the withering that takes place as a result of indisponibilité in general and pride in particular. The same
arrogance that keeps the proud person from communion with her fellows keeps her from hope.
This example points to the dialectical engagement of despair and hope—where there is hope there is always the
possibility of despair, and only where there is the possibility of despair can we respond with hope. Despair, says
Marcel, is equivalent to saying that there is nothing in the whole of reality to which I can extend credit, nothing
worthwhile. “Despair is possible in any form, at any moment and to any degree, and this betrayal may seem to be
counseled, if not forced upon us, by the very structure of the world we live in” (Marcel 1995, p. 26). Hope is the
affirmation that is the response to this denial. Where despair denies that anything in reality is worthy of credit, hope
affirms that reality will ultimately prove worthy of an infinite credit, the complete engagement and disposal of myself.
14. Religious Belief
Throughout the course of his work, Marcel arrived at an essentially theistic, specifically Christian, worldview, leading
many to describe him as a Christian or theistic existentialist (especially in opposition to Sartre). Indeed, some thinkers
regard Marcel's philosophical writings on religious belief as his most profound contribution to philosophy: “From the
beginning of his philosophical career, Marcel's main interest has been the interpretation of religious experience, that is,
of the relation between man and ultimate reality” (Cain, 1979, p. 87). Marcel’s early reflections, especially in Being
and Having, laid the seeds for his conversion to Catholicism at the age of 40, though he believed that his philosophical
ideas, and central Christian themes, though complementary, were in fact independent of each other: “It is quite
possible that the existence of the fundamental Christian data may be necessary in fact to enable the mind to conceive
some of the notions which I have attempted to analyze; but these notions cannot be said to depend on the data of
Christianity, and they do not presuppose it . . . I have experienced [the development of these ideas] more than twenty
years before I had the remotest thought of becoming a Catholic” (Marcel, 1995, pp. 44-45). Marcel became a Catholic
when the French novelist, François Mauriac (1885--1979), recognized various themes in his writing concerning
commitment, forgiveness, moral character and the religious justification of the moral order. Mauriac wrote to Marcel
and explicitly asked him whether he ought not to join the Catholic Church, a call to which, after a period of reflection,
Marcel assented. It is noteworthy that his conversion did not significantly change his philosophy, although it did lead
to an increased focus on how various experiences, especially moral experiences, may point to the presence of the
transcendent in human life.
Marcel, as one would expect, does not engage in philosophy of religion in the traditional sense. He is often critical of
various attempts to “prove” the existence of God in the history of philosophy, such as those to be found in Thomism.
He regards such attempts as belonging to the realm of primary reflection, and as such, they leave out the personal
experience of God, which is necessarily lost in the move to abstraction. Marcel notes that committed religious
believers are not greatly interested in arguments for God’s existence, and may even look upon these arguments with
suspicion; atheists are also usually not persuaded by such arguments (Marcel, 1951b, p. 196; Marcel, 1964, p. 179).
Another reason for the lack of efficacy of formal arguments is that many in the contemporary world are not open to the
religious worldview. Marcel introduces a distinction between “anti-theists” and “atheists” to make this point. Whereas
an atheist is somebody who does not believe in God, an anti-theist is somebody who does not want to believe in God.
It is possible, Marcel observes, to close oneself off from the experience of the religious in human life, not for rational
reasons, but for reasons of self-interest, or from a desire to avoid religious morality, or to avoid submission to an
outside authority. This view is prevalent, he believes, not just in modern life, but also in modern philosophy: “The
history of modern philosophy seems to supply abundant illustration of the progressive replacement of atheism by…an
anti-theism, whose mainspring is to will that God should not be” (Marcel 1951b, p. 176). The prevalence of this
attitude makes it even more difficult to pursue a purely rational approach to God’s existence.
However, Marcel develops another approach to the question of God, and many themes in his work are concerned in
one way or another with this topic. He belongs to the line of thinkers, which includes Soren Kierkegaard and Martin
Buber in philosophy, and Karl Barth and Paul Tillich in theology, who draw attention to the non-theoretical dimension
of religious belief, and moral experience. His approach is phenomenological in character, involving a description of
various human experiences and the attempt to reveal their underlying meaning and justification. Marcel’s position is
that there is a set of profound human experiences (some of which we have described earlier) that reveal the presence of
God (the ‘Absolute Thou’) in human life. These experiences are present in the lives of most human beings, even
though a particular individual might not necessarily connect them with a religious worldview, or come to an
affirmation of God based on them. The experiences mentioned above of fidelity, hope, presence and intersubjectivity,
which all involve profound commitments that cannot be captured and analyzed in objective terms, but that are
nonetheless real and can at least be partly described conceptually (in philosophy, but especially in literature, drama and
art [Marcel, 1963]), are best explained if they are understood as being pledged to an absolute, transcendent reality. As
noted, the experience of fidelity is one of his favorite examples. Fidelity involves a certain way of being with another
person. The other person is not seen as a person with a certain set of desirable characteristics, or as identified with a
function, or even as a rational, autonomous subject; rather he or she is experienced as a “thou,” a person with whom I
identify and am one with on the path of life (Anderson, 1982, p. 31). Fidelity is an experience that the other will not
fail me, and that I will not fail them, and so, as we have seen, it is deeper than constancy (in many relationships,
fidelity is reduced to constancy). Marcel suggests that such experiences have religious significance, because the
individual often appeals to an ultimate strength which from within enables him to make the pledge which he knows he
could not make from himself alone (Pax, 1972, p. 60).
Marcel holds that unconditional commitments such as these are best explained if understood as being pledged to an
absolute transcendence. Indeed, given that life is full of temptations and challenges, the recognition of an absolute
Thou also helps the individual to keep his or her commitments. Of hope he observes: “The only possible source from
which this absolute hope springs must once more be stressed. It appears as a response of the creature to the infinite
Being to whom it is conscious of owing everything that it has and upon whom it cannot impose any condition
whatsoever” (Marcel, 1962a, p. 47). “Unconditionality,” as he has also noted, “is the true sign of God’s presence”
(Marcel, 1950-51, p. 40). In general, his position is that the affirmation of God can only be attained by an individual at
the level of a being-in-a-situation, or secondary reflection. At the level of primary reflection, the existence of God
cannot be demonstrated, because the individual must be personally involved in the various experiences that can lead to
an affirmation, but such genuine involvement is precluded at the level of abstraction. Yet, this does not mean that
philosophy of religion in the traditional sense is not important; indeed Marcel’s reflections just mentioned must be
regarded as part of an attempt to show, however indirectly, that belief in God is reasonable, but, as with all areas of
primary reflection, we should recognize the limitations of a purely rational approach to religious belief.
15. Marcel in Dialogue
Four decades after his death, Marcel's philosophy continues to generate a steady stream of creative scholarship that, if
modest in volume, nevertheless attests to his continued relevance for the contemporary philosophical landscape.
Marcel's influence on contemporary philosophy is apparent, for example, in the work of Paul Ricoeur, his most famous
student. Through Ricoeur, Marcel has influenced contemporary philosophy in and around the hermeneutic tradition.
The pattern of “detour and return” that characterizes Ricoeur and some of his students closely resembles Marcel's
dialectic of primary and secondary reflection.[13] Likewise, Marcel's understanding of otherness—illustrated by his
image of “constellations,” conglomerations of meaningfully connected but non-totalizable beings—is an explicit
challenge to philosophers of absolute otherness including Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, and John D. Caputo,
and a valuable resource for philosophers with a chiastic understanding of otherness, including Ricoeur and Richard
Kearney. In addition, Marcel's philosophy offers rich possibilities for dialogue with contemporary ontologies
struggling to address the problem of “being” without succumbing to ethical “violence” or “ontotheological”
conceptions of God. As such, his philosophy should be of interest to scholars interested in the work of Martin
Heidegger, Jean-Luc Marion, Merold Westphal and others philosophizing at the intersection of philosophy and
theology. Finally, his insistence that philosophy should illuminate our lived experience and his insistence on concrete
examples have much in common with thinkers who view philosophy as a “way of life,” including Pierre Hadot and
Michel Foucault. The resources of Marcel's philosophy have only begun to be tapped, and one may hope that the
recent republication of what are arguably Marcel's two most important works, The Mystery of Being (by St.
Augustine's Press) and Creative Fidelity (by Fordham University Press), will help to fuel a renaissance in scholarship
concerning this remarkable thinker.
Marcel’s thought continues to endure and a steady stream of studies regularly appear in different disciplines that draw
attention to the relevance of Marcel’s central ideas for our concerns in twentieth first century philosophy, theology and
culture. These works include Sweetman (2008), an analysis of Marcel’s view of the person and its implications for
issues in epistemology and philosophy of religion; and Hernandez (2011), a detailed study of Marcel’s religious
philosophy from the point of view of his reflections on ethics. Traenor’s work (2007) places Marcel into dialogue (and
debate) with Levinas on the question of the other, while at the same time arguing that their views on the other are
incompatible; Tunstall (2013) discusses and develops Marcel’s ideas about dehumanization with regard to the topic of
racism; Tattum (2013) places Marcel in dialogue with thinkers such as Bergson, Levinas, Ricoeur and Derrida on the
concept of time, while Pierre Colin (2009) returns to Marcel’s views of the experience of hope.
Marcel remains one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century, and his major themes continue to be
relevant for the plight of humanity in the twentieth first century. Many find Marcel's thought attractive because he
emphasizes a number of significant ideas that have been influential in twentieth century thinking in both philosophy
and theology: the attempt to preserve the dignity and integrity of the human person by emphasizing the inadequacy of
the materialistic life and the unavoidable human need for transcendence; the inability of philosophy to capture the
profundity and depth of key human experiences, and so the need to find a deeper kind of reflection; the emphasis on
the human experience of intersubjectivity, which Marcel believes is at the root of human fulfillment; and a seeking
after the transcendent dimension of human experience, a dimension that he believes cannot be denied without loss, and
that often gives meaning to many of our most profound experiences. Marcel is also regarded as important by a range of
thinkers in different disciplines because he presents an alternative vision to challenge the moral relativism and spiritual
nihilism of his French rival, Jean Paul Sartre, and other representative existentialist philosophers (Marcel, 1995, pp.
47-90). For this important reason, his work continues to speak to many of our concerns today in ethics, politics, and
religion.

Gabriel Marcel, in full Gabriel-Honoré Marcel, (born December 7, 1889, Paris, France—died October 8, 1973, Paris),
French philosopher, dramatist, and critic who was associated with the phenomenological and existentialist movements
in 20th-century European philosophy and whose work and style are often characterized as theistic or Christian
existentialism (a term Marcel disliked, preferring the more neutral description “neo-Socratic” because it captures the
dialogical, probing, and sometimes inchoate nature of his reflections).
Early Life, Philosophical Style, And Principal Works
Marcel’s mother died when he was four years old, and he was raised by his father and his maternal aunt, whom his
father later married. Marcel had little religious upbringing but received an excellent education, studying philosophy at
the Sorbonne and passing an agrégation (competitive examination) in 1910 that qualified him to teach in secondary
schools. Although he produced a stream of philosophical and dramatic works (he wrote more than 30 plays), as well as
shorter pieces in reviews and periodicals, Marcel never completed a doctoral dissertation and never held a formal
position as a professor, instead working mostly as a lecturer, writer, and critic. He also developed a keen interest in
classical music and composed a number of pieces.
Marcel’s philosophical style follows the descriptive method of phenomenology. Eschewing a structured, more
systematic approach, Marcel developed a method of discursive probing around the edges of central life experiences
that was aimed at uncovering truths about the human condition. Indeed, several of his early works are written in a diary
format, an unusual approach for a philosopher. Marcel always insisted on working with concrete examples from
ordinary experience as the initial basis for more abstract philosophical analysis. His work is also significantly
autobiographical, a fact that reflected his belief that philosophy is as much a personal quest as a disinterested
impersonal search for objective truth. In Marcel’s view, philosophical questions involve the questioner in a profound
way, an insight that he believed had been lost by much of contemporary philosophy. Marcel’s dramatic works were
intended to complement his philosophical thinking; many experiences that he brought to life onstage were subject to
more detailed analysis in his philosophical writings.
The most systematic presentation of his ideas is to be found in his two-volume work Mystère de l’être (1951; The
Mystery of Being), based on his Gifford Lectures at the University of Aberdeen (1949–50). Other notable works are:
Journal métaphysique (1927; Metaphysical Journal); Être et avoir (1935; Being and Having); Du refus à l’invocation
(1940; Creative Fidelity); Homo viator: prolégomènes à une métaphysique de l’espérance (1944; Homo Viator:
Introduction to a Metaphysic of Hope); Les Hommes contre l’humain (1951; Man Against Mass Society); Pour une
sagesse tragique et son au-delà (1968; Tragic Wisdom and Beyond); several key essays, including “On the Ontological
Mystery” (1933); and several significant plays, including Un Homme de Dieu (1922; A Man of God) and Le Monde
cassé (1932; The Broken World), both of which have been performed in English.
Basic Philosophical Orientation
Marcel was influenced by the phenomenology of the German philosopher Edmund Husserl and by his rejection of
idealism and Cartesianism, especially early in his career. His basic philosophical orientation was motivated by his
dissatisfaction with the approach to philosophy that one finds in René Descartes and in the development of
Cartesianism after Descartes. Marcel observed (in Being and Having) that “Cartesianism implies a
severance…between intellect and life; its result is a depreciation of the one, and an exaltation of the other, both
arbitrary.” Descartes is famous for having purposefully doubted all of his ideas and for splitting the interior self off
from the external world; his strategy of methodic doubt was an attempt to restore the link between the mind and
reality. According to Marcel, Descartes’s starting point is not an accurate depiction of the self in actual experience, in
which there is no division between consciousness and the world. Describing Descartes’s approach as a “spectator”
view, Marcel argued that the self should instead be understood as a “participant” in reality—a more accurate
understanding of the nature of the self and of its immersion in the world of concrete experience.
Being And Having, Mystery And Problem
Marcel developed his position by introducing a number of important philosophical distinctions for which he became
well known. Among them is that between being and having, which was central to his thought. The distinction applies
to a number of areas in life, including the experience of human embodiment, the nature of intersubjective relations, and
the nature of the human person. Marcel argued that people’s relationships to their own bodies is not one of typical
“ownership,” and so the fact of human embodiment presents a difficulty for any philosophy, such as Cartesianism, that
wishes to place the fact of embodiment in doubt. It is thus incorrect to understand embodiment in terms of ownership,
or to say that people “possess” their bodies as instruments; it is more accurate to say instead that “I am my body,” by
which Marcel meant that one cannot look upon one’s body as an object or as a problem to be solved, because the
logical detachment that is required to do so cannot be achieved. Indeed, as soon as I consider my body as an object, it
ceases to be “my body,” because the nature of conceptual thought requires detachment from the object under analysis.
Nor, however, can I regard my bodily experiences as the sum total of my life.
This analysis then opens up the realms of being and having. “Having” involves taking possession of objects, requires
detachment from the self, and is the realm in which one seeks conceptual mastery and universal solutions. Marcel
acknowledged that, although it is possible to adopt this attitude toward human beings, it is a distortion of the nature of
the self. The realm of being, on the other hand, is one in which experience is unified before conceptual analysis, in
which the individual participates in reality and has access to experiences that are later distorted at the level of abstract
thinking.
Marcel introduced another of his famous distinctions, that between mystery and problem, to further elaborate the
notions of being and having. He tended to divide reality into the world of mystery and the world of problems (the
world of being and the world of having). These realms further correspond to a distinction between two types of
reflection, secondary and primary. In The Mystery of Being, Marcel defined a problem as a task that requires a
solution that is available for everybody. What is distinctive about a problem is that it requires an abstraction at the
conceptual level from the lived experience of the person who is dealing with the problem. Marcel illustrated this point
with an example from his school days, when he was unable to figure out how the wires in an electrical circuit joined
together to produce a current. Problems of this sort are objective and universal and can be solved in principle by
anyone; they require what Marcel called primary reflection. This is ordinary, everyday reflection; it involves
functional, abstract logical analysis and is also the realm of academic disciplines, including theology, science, and
philosophy itself. Primary reflection is an essential part of human engagement with reality, a fact Marcel did not wish
to deny, but he did wish to challenge the view that it is the only type of reflection or that every human question or
concern should be approached by means of primary reflection. He believed that modern philosophy has lost its way
because it mistakenly judges that any issue that cannot be analyzed in this abstract, scientific way is not a real area of
knowledge.
Marcel argued, however, that there is another realm of human experience—the realm of mystery—that cannot be fully
understood by means of primary reflection. A deeper type of reflection will be required in order to gain access to that
realm (see below Experience and reflection). In “On the Ontological Mystery,” Marcel characterized a mystery as a
“problem that encroaches on its own data.” The point is best understood by saying that, in the case of a mystery, the
questioner is directly involved in the question and so is unable to separate from it in order to study it in an objective
manner (and thereby seek an “objective” solution that would be accessible to everyone). In the realm of mystery, it is
not possible to substitute one person for another without altering the question itself. There are several key areas of
mystery in human life, according to Marcel: the embodiment of the human subject; the unity of body and mind; and
the central human experiences (often referred to as the “concrete approaches”) of faith, fidelity, hope, and love.
Marcel illustrated these points with several powerful examples. One concerns what philosophers of religion often refer
to as the problem of evil, or the problem of how to reconcile the all-good and all-powerful nature of God with the
existence of evil in human experience. Marcel wished to distinguish this problem from what he called the mystery of
evil—the way in which an experience of evil affects one in one’s personal life and how one might try to cope with it.
In the former case, the problem is considered at an abstract level, and, while the discussion is not without value, it
leaves out the issue about evil that most troubles people—the concrete experience of evil itself and how to respond to
it. In “On the Ontological Mystery,” Marcel observed that “I can only grasp it as evil in the measure in which it
touches me—that is to say, in the measure in which I am involved.…Being ‘involved’ is the fundamental fact.” At the
level of primary reflection, the philosopher seeks a universal objective solution, but such a solution is not appropriate
at the level of existentialcontact, according to Marcel, because the experience of the individual is necessarily excluded
in the move to abstraction.
Experience And Reflection
The foregoing analysis reveals a tension in Marcel’s thought, one that he was aware of and with which he often
struggled. The tension emerges when one considers that the philosophical discussion of the problem of evil is valuable
not only because it addresses a conceptual problem that is of great concern to human beings but also because it may
help the individual in a small way to cope with the experience of evil. If one believed that one had a satisfactory
philosophical answer to the problem of evil, then the experience of evil could take on a larger significance within that
rationale, making it easier to handle. Indeed, it might be argued, Marcel himself did something similar in his own
philosophical work in that he provided a philosophical argument for a return to concrete experience.
The same tension was also present in the work of several other existentialist philosophers, including Martin Heidegger,
Karl Jaspers, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, as those thinkers struggled to articulatephilosophically the exact
relationship between experience and reflection. It is a basic claim of philosophers in the existentialist tradition that
experience is not just temporally prior to reflection but also ontologically prior to reflection. This means that the realm
of reflection is secondary to the realm of experience and must be understood in terms of it, rather than the other way
around (see Existentialism: Ontic structure of human existence). That claim then raises the question of how to think
objectively about the realm of experience from the point of view of reflection, which is a derived reality only.
Existential philosophy is fascinating in its general approach to this difficulty, and Marcel developed one of the most
effective ways of responding to it.
Marcel appealed in several places to the example of fidelity to illustrate the key point. Human beings have a
fundamental understanding of fidelity not through conceptual analysis but through experience. Indeed, the meaning of
fidelity is very difficult to state in conceptual terms, and it is especially difficult to state necessary and sufficient
conditions for fidelity. In typical phenomenological fashion, Marcel approached the problem of definition in a concrete
way. One might imagine, for example, that fidelity—or faithfulness to a person—requires that the person to whom one
is faithful be alive, but Marcel thought it possible to be faithful in certain cases to a person who is deceased. After
several failed attempts to capture its nature in conceptual terms, it becomes clear that fidelity is an experience that is
hard to define, but it is easy to recognize when one is in the presence of fidelity. Fidelity is an experience that involves
the questioner, and, as such, it belongs to the realm of mystery.
Marcel, however, did not believe that the realm of mystery is unknowable or that it is a mystical realm. Such a position
would invite charges of irrationalism and would subordinate reason and objective truth to personal subjectivity.
Mysteries are found at the level of being—the level at which experience is unified, the level at which the distinction
between concept and object breaks down. In this realm, reflection on experience and experience itself cannot be
separated without distorting the experience in question.
Thinking about the realm of mystery prompted Marcel to introduce the concept of secondary reflection, which he
contrasted with primary reflection, a distinction that also parallels the distinction between problem and mystery. In The
Mystery of Being, Marcel noted:
Roughly, we can say that where primary reflection tends to dissolve the unity of experience which is first put before it,
the function of secondary reflection is essentially recuperative; it reconquers that unity.
It is difficult to provide a philosophical account of secondary reflection because it is fundamentally nonconceptual; it is
also a movement that helps one to recover those experiences which have been the subject of conceptual analysis but
whose meaning has proved elusive because the questioner is removed at the level of primary reflection. Secondary
reflection, therefore, can be said to have two aspects. The first is critical reflection on the nature of reflection itself,
which reveals that everyday reflective thinking, including in philosophy, theology, and science, does not provide an
adequate description of the nature of the self or of key human experiences (faith, fidelity, hope, and love). Such critical
reflection also shows the failure of modern epistemology—including the generation of the problem of skepticism—
because it begins from the wrong starting point, an artificial split between the self and the world. The second aspect of
secondary reflection involves a process of recovery, or what Marcel called, in The Philosophy of Existentialism, an
assuranceof the realm of mystery.
Throughout Marcel’s work there is an attempt to reveal objective structures of human existence by means of the
process of secondary reflection, a process that helps individuals to appreciate and recover defining human experiences.
He believed that such experiences are expressive of the depth of human nature but that they are often lost in the
modern world. Secondary reflection is a way of helping the individual to recover something of those experiences, so its
dual aspect as a critique and as a recovery is important. It also allows some rational, objective access to the realm of
personal experience. Marcel insisted that such profound experiences are objective—i.e., the same for all human
beings—and so there is no possibility of a relativism or subjectivism about experience. Nor is he trying to denigrate
primary reflection—the realm of objective knowledge—but wishes to show its proper role in human life and that it is
important not to overstate its value.
The Broken World
A major theme in Marcel is the notion that human beings live in a broken world (le monde cassé). He meant to convey
a number of points by this claim, one that he returned to in different forms in his work. First, the notion of being has
been lost in the modern world, replaced by a near-obsession with the power of primary reflection; the modern world is
under the sway of what Marcel called “the spirit of abstraction” (Man Against Mass Society). Second, one
manifestation of the dominance of primary reflection is the increasing bureaucratization of modern culture, which
often identifies human beings with their functional roles in society and which therefore stultifies their inner lives and
their creativity to such an extent that people’s self-worth is often directly tied to the social status of their jobs or their
potential for owning material possessions. That situation leads to alienation, a key theme in the existentialist movement
in general.
Marcel elaborated on the broken world by means of yet another distinction that flowed out of earlier themes: that
between disponibilitéand indisponibilité (usually translated in English as “availability” and “unavailability”).
Disponibilité describes the degree to which an individual is available for another. Such availability is part of the
essence of intersubjective relations but is denigrated in the broken world, dominated as it is by selfishness, emphasis
on individual autonomy, instrumentality, and the desire for material success. Indisponibilité is the opposite attitude. It
is to approach intersubjective relations in a selfish way—in the language of Immanuel Kant, as a means rather than as
an end or, in the language of Martin Buber (a philosopher whose work is very similar to Marcel’s in a number of
areas), as an “I-It” rather than as an “I-Thou.” In the broken world, the attitude of “I-It” dominates human relationships
at all levels. Marcel illustrated the point with the example of a person who is sitting in the same room but who is not
“present” to me, in contrast to a person who is “present” to me but who may be miles away (The Mystery of Being).
Third, the broken world is characterized by an obsession with technologyand with science as a means of solving all
human problems. Marcel did not advocate that technology should be given up, but he argued that it often leads to a
smothering of the life of the spirit because it seduces people into equating material comfort with human fulfillment,
among other temptations. The experience of the broken world can lead an individual into deep despair, often
manifested in lack of self-worth, a feeling of alienation, and a loss of confidence that life has an overall meaning.
Finally, however, the human person has as part of its structure what Marcel called an ontological exigency—a need for
being, a need to develop the inner life of the spirit in creativity and freedom, including in its ethical dimensions.
Ontological exigency is not merely a form of wishful thinking but is an “interior urge”—an appeal or a call—that
offers the human person an “ontological hope” in the ultimate rationality and meaningfulness of reality. That
reassertion of human essence is the beginning of a rejection of the category of having in coming to terms with human
existence.
Religious Belief
Marcel’s thought has a clear religious dimension, and he recognized early on that it was leading him in a religious
direction even though he then had no strong religious beliefs and no formal religious upbringing. His thinking led to
his conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1929, and he is now often referred to as a theistic or Christian existentialist.
Marcel’s approach to religious belief was notably existentialist, and it is no surprise that he distanced himself from
traditional philosophy of religion. Indeed, he remained suspicious of attempts to prove the existence of God or to offer
arguments in support of religious belief. Such attempts are an exercise in primary reflection, and, while not without
value, they necessarily preclude an experience of God. The essence of religious belief involves an experiential aspect,
so the intellectualdiscussion is necessarily limited.
Marcel’s experiential approach to religious belief was rooted in the phenomenological method. He believed that the
profound experiences he described in his work—fidelity, hope, disponibilité, and intersubjective relations, all of which
involve commitments and relations that elude conceptual description—are best explained if they are understood as
being pledged to a transcendent reality, what he often called an “Absolute Thou.” Again drawing upon the example of
fidelity, Marcel held that fidelity involves a certain way of being with another person; it is “creative” because it calls
upon the individual to remain open to the other. As the American philosopher Thomas C. Anderson noted:
The other person is not seen as a person with a certain set of desirable characteristics, or as identified with a function,
or even as a rational, autonomous subject; rather he or she is experienced as a “thou,” a person with whom I identify
and am one with on the path of life.
Such experiences have a religious dimension because, as Clyde Pax, another Marcel scholar, put it, the individual often
appeals to an ultimate strength, which enables him to make the pledge that he knows he cannot make from himself
alone. The pledge to the “Absolute Thou” makes the unconditional commitment that is typical of these types of
relationships both possible and intelligible.
With regard to the ultimate hope in the meaning of human existence, Marcel observed (in Homo Viator):
The only possible source from which this absolute hope springs must once more be stressed. It appears as a response of
the creature to the infiniteBeing to whom it is conscious of owing everything that it has and upon whom it cannot
impose any condition whatsoever.
It is in that context that Marcel argued that it is no surprise that many human beings experience their lives as a gift. Of
course, a gift requires a gift-giver, an example of an indirect argument for the existence of a Supreme Being, one of
several to be found in Marcel’s work.
Marcel’s thought continues to attract attention in the 21st century because of the enduring relevance of his key themes
and the widespread influence of some of the difficulties he identified. These include the phenomenon of the broken
world, the hegemony of science and technology, and the stultifying of the life of the spirit in contemporary life and
culture, all amid the necessity of responding to the human call for transcendence.

Gabriel Marcel
Previous (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
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Gabriel Honoré Marcel (December 7, 1889 – October 8, 1973) was a French philosopher, playwright, and Christian
thinker. He has often been referred to as a “Christian existentialist,” although he preferred to be known as a “Neo-
Socratic” or “Christian Socratic” thinker. Although he wrote roughly thirty plays and earned his livelihood mostly as a
writer, critic, and editor, he is best known for his philosophical work. His style of philosophy was intentionally
unsystematic and personal, preferring the way of concrete, descriptive analysis to formal argumentation or logical
demonstration. He considered reality to be an “ontological mystery” which one could only come to “know” through an
unsystematic, participatory way of reflecting as opposed to the impersonal mode of scientific abstraction. In
investigating various existential themes, Marcel’s work centered upon issues concerning the individual person,
freedom, and human dignity. He was particularly critical of modern social institutions and technology for their
dehumanizing effects upon individuals.
Contents
[hide]
• 1 Life
• 2 Main philosophical ideas
o 2.1 Critique of technology
o 2.2 Problem and mystery
o 2.3 Ethics, intersubjectivity, and hope
o 2.4 Marcel the playwright
• 3 Bibliography
• 4 References
• 5 External links
o 5.1 General philosophy sources
• 6 Credits

Marcel's treatment of the being of each individual person as a mystery brought forth a more humble view of the self,
which paradoxically makes the self available to others for genuine inter-subjective relations, where each subject can
acquire a true, dignified self. According to Marcel, the presence of being people thus experience becomes open to "the
transcendent," and the phenomenon of "hope" consists in it. His existentialist approach to God is not "a distinct
apprehension of God as someone other" (Marcel 1964, 167). Rather, it shows a descriptive yet profound path to
experience God.
Life
Marcel was born on December 7, 1889 in Paris. His mother died when he was only four, and he was raised by his
father and maternal aunt. Although later his father and aunt would marry, Marcel never forgot the loss of his mother or
the loneliness he experienced as a child. In his later writings, he occasionally reflected upon this loss and in fact once
referred to his childhood as a “desolate universe.”
Despite this darker side of his youth, the young Marcel excelled in school and performed at the highest academic level.
At the university, he received a rigorous training in philosophy, and in 1910, he obtained the aggregation in philosophy
at the unusually early age of 21. Initially Marcel was drawn to philosophical idealism, particularly the work of
Schelling, F. H. Bradley, and the American philosopher Josiah Royce. The impact of World War I, however, would
greatly shift Marcel’s thinking. During the war he served as a Red Cross official and his duties included relaying
information about missing soldiers to the next of kin. The brutal realities of war and Marcel’s willingness to reflect
upon them led him to turn away from idealism and all philosophical systems which did not take into account the
fundamental “brokenness” of the world. In fact, it was through this notion of “a broken world” that Marcel directed his
studies, both as a playwright and as a philosopher. This, in turn, led to his inquiries into basic existential themes, which
were aspects of reality that cannot be neatly categorized within an abstract system.
After the war, Marcel taught at a number of secondary schools, and throughout his life he would often teach in stints at
universities, such as the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, the Sorbonne in Paris, and Harvard University. Primarily,
however, Marcel earned his income as a playwright, editor, and critic. He worked as a drama critic for various literary
journals and served as an editor for Plon, the major French Catholic publisher. Though Marcel would become better
known for his philosophical work than his plays, he was often surprised and frustrated that his plays received so little
attention. Also, the idea of dialogue, which was of primary importance in his philosophy, held a practical as well as
theoretical place in Marcel’s life. For many years, he hosted “Friday evenings,” a weekly discussion group through
which he met and influenced important young French philosophers, like Jean Wahl, Paul Ricoeur, Emmanuel Levinas,
and Jean-Paul Sartre.
In 1929, Marcel converted to Catholicism at the age of forty. Although raised as an atheist, his thought throughout his
thirties had turned in a more religious direction. But it was not until the French Catholic writer Francois Mauriac posed
the question to him, “But after all, why are you not one of us?” that Marcel converted. He never intended to be an
"Catholic" philosopher representing the Church, and his way of philosophical pursuit continued. But the notions of
“call” and “response” would become important themes in Marcel’s later work. In 1949-1950, Marcel gave the Gifford
Lectures, which was later published as The Mystery of Being (1951), and in 1961-1962 he gave the William James
Lectures at Harvard, which was published as The Existential Background of Human Dignity (1963). Marcel’s other
major philosophical contributions include Being and Having, Man Against Mass Society, Homo Viator, Creative
Fidelity, and Tragic Wisdom and Beyond. Marcel died October 8, 1973, in Paris.
Main philosophical ideas
As a philosopher, Marcel has often been referred to as a “Christian existentialist.” He repudiated the term
“existentialist,” however, largely due to the fact that existentialism as a philosophical movement was associated
primarily with the atheistic and voluntaristic thought of Jean-Paul Sartre. For this reason Marcel preferred to be known
as a “Neo-Socratic” or “Christian Socratic” thinker. Nevertheless, like other ‘philosophers of existence’ (Martin
Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, Sartre), Marcel was preoccupied by certain existential themes that centered upon the human
person (existent). These themes included the uniqueness of the individual, human freedom, and the ethical relations of
intersubjectivity.
Critique of technology
As with other existential thinkers, Marcel critiqued various aspects of modern society. He was particularly critical of
technology for its dehumanizing effects, in treating human beings as mere objects or things. For example, the
economic idea of “human resources” treats individual persons as mere “assets” or “liabilities” to be bought and sold.
Also, while he recognized the benefits of technology in developing new vaccines and new means of mass production
in the necessities of food, shelter, and clothing, Marcel warned of a "technological mindset." This mindset thinks of the
natural world merely as something to be manipulated and exploited, rather than as something to engage or participate
in. Moreover, this technological mindset is often applied to oneself as well. One can view oneself only in terms of the
various functions one performs. One is a banker, a lawyer, a carpenter, or a plumber. One is a husband, a wife, a
member of the local Country Club or the First Presbyterian Church. Although there is of course a legitimate place for
performing these functions, Marcel was worried that one can see one’s self only in terms of these functions. What is
ignored, according to Marcel, is the fundamental dignity of each individual person, a kind of mysterious worth at the
center of each human being which cannot be easily summed up or defined. This, in turn, leads to the sense of the
mystery of being itself, or what Marcel called the “ontological mystery.”
Problem and mystery
Marcel distinguished between two ways of attaining knowledge. The first was to consider it as a problem. This is the
approach taken by science, in which the scientist tries to understand something through the method of abstraction. This
approach is taken both by empirical or natural scientists (through the use of techniques such as statistics or other
mathematical formulations) as well as philosophical science. Regardless, the thing under investigation is treated in
terms of its general nature. For example, in inquiring about a human being, one simply knows what is general or
common to all human beings. Moreover, in treating the subject of inquiry as a problem, the investigator uses a method
of impersonal argumentation or formal demonstration to “prove” the theory. This kind of analysis in which one
dissects, abstracts, and separates, Marcel called primary reflection.
But for Marcel there was a form of secondary reflection. This kind of reflection approaches the subject not as a
problem but as a mystery, and doing so it unites rather than separates. Similar to the method of phenomenology,
Marcel’s secondary reflection approaches the subject through a concrete descriptive analysis. Marcel, however,
rejected the more formal or systematic method of phenomenology developed by Edmund Husserl and instead
employed a more natural or personal kind of reflection. In doing this, he often turned to everyday examples. In this
way, he tried to reveal the basic structures of human experience by describing the implicit or hidden aspects or
meanings which are often concealed or overlooked. In fact, one of his former students, Paul Ricoeur, recalled how
during the seminars held in his home, Marcel would not allow students to elaborate or criticize a particular text until
they had introduced the topic via their own concrete experience. Marcel also avoided the use of technical terminology
and preferred a more natural and ordinary language, which he considered to be more vital and alive.
One reason Marcel’s way of thinking is called Socratic is that, for him, philosophy is viewed as a constant questioning.
No technical method can ever conquer this mystery of reality. Rather, one has to participate in it by engaging and so
questioning it with one’s entire being. For this reason, Marcel did not write systematic treatises, but wrote in different
forms such as philosophical diaries, which were filled with fragments, personal reflections, self-questionings, and
various stops and starts. Again, like Socrates, Marcel viewed philosophy as an open-ended dialogue with both others
and oneself. But given this absence of a systematic method he was frequently criticized for lacking philosophical rigor.
Defenders of Marcel will respond, though, that the unsystematic approach is the very key to opening the door to the
ontological mystery.
Ethics, intersubjectivity, and hope
One of Marcel’s greatest philosophical contributions in employing his descriptive, personal style of analysis was in the
realm of ethics and intersubjectivity. According to him, when one treats the being of another as a mystery, one does so
with a sense of humility ("ontological humility") by which to be able to see the fundamental dignity of the other. This
leads to abandonment of one's self, dynamic openness, "disponibilité" (availability), and "creative fidelity" to others.
This way, Marcel called for a greater responsibility to others, but not merely through the traditional notion of doing
good deeds, but primarily by being humbly present or open to others, again with one’s whole being. Through this
availability, a dynamic and creative encounter happens between people, in which they “make contact.” One's
relationship to others, which develops this way, actually helps one to acquire a true self and is open to "the
transcendent" which is not beyond experience but within experience. It is a moment of holiness. Marcel's description
of how different individual beings can authentically relate to one another to experience the transcendent is perhaps
something we need to realize for peace in society today. Marcel, in fact, did not merely write about this phenomenon
of disponibilité but practiced it as well. Many have noted the aura of self-prensence he displayed in both his public
lectures and personal interactions with others.
Finally, Marcel analyzed the phenomenon of hope. Like other existential thinkers, Marcel made the distinction
between fear and dread, where fear is being afraid of some particular thing or object, while dread is the basic
existential anxiety or angst one feels apart from fearing any specific thing. Dread, then, is one of the fundamental ways
of relating to the world. In a similar contrast, Marcel distinguished between desire and hope. Desire is when one wants
or seeks; some particular thing or object. Hope, however, is an open-ended expectation in which one anticipates
without knowing exactly what it is he is waiting or hoping for. It is here that Marcel’s analyses take a specifically
religious, and even Christian, form, in that such hope, he believes, is not something one can dictate or create by oneself
alone. Rather, it is a grace which one receives. In his own words, "the only genuine hope is hope in what does not
depend on ourselves, hope springing from humility and not from pride" (Marcel 1995, 32).
Marcel the playwright
Throughout his life, Marcel continued his work as a playwright and drama critic. Through his plays Marcel explored
various human situations in all their intensity and complexity. A common theme in his dramatic works was the
interpersonal dynamics in family situations where tensions emerged due to the struggle between carrying out one’s
duties while striving to fulfill personal aspirations. Far from being divorced from his philosophical work, the ideas
expressed in his plays were closely connected to his theoretical work. In fact, some themes which first found
expression in dramatic form would years later, after much reflection, be taken up in philosophical form. Finally,
Marcel was an accomplished musician and composer. He believed it was music, in fact, which above all could tap into
and express this ontological mystery.