Gabriel Marcel

In the most wide-ranging history of phenomenology since Herbert Spiegelberg’s The Phenomenological Movement over fifty years ago, Baring uncovers a new and unexpected force―Catholic intellectuals―behind the growth of phenomenology in the early twentieth century, and makes the case for the movement’s catalytic intellectual and social impact.

Of all modern schools of thought, phenomenology has the strongest claim to the mantle of “continental” philosophy. In the first half of the twentieth century, phenomenology expanded from a few German towns into a movement spanning Europe. Edward Baring shows that credit for this prodigious growth goes to a surprising group of early enthusiasts: Catholic intellectuals. Placing phenomenology in historical context, Baring reveals the enduring influence of Catholicism in twentieth-century intellectual thought.

Converts to the Real argues that Catholic scholars allied with phenomenology because they thought it mapped a path out of modern idealism―which they associated with Protestantism and secularization―and back to Catholic metaphysics. Seeing in this unfulfilled promise a bridge to Europe’s secular academy, Catholics set to work extending phenomenology’s reach, writing many of the first phenomenological publications in languages other than German and organizing the first international conferences on phenomenology. The Church even helped rescue Edmund Husserl’s papers from Nazi Germany in 1938. But phenomenology proved to be an unreliable ally, and in debates over its meaning and development, Catholic intellectuals contemplated the ways it might threaten the faith. As a result, Catholics showed that phenomenology could be useful for secular projects, and encouraged its adoption by the philosophical establishment in countries across Europe and beyond.

Baring traces the resonances of these Catholic debates in postwar Europe. From existentialism, through the phenomenology of Paul Ricoeur and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, to the speculative realism of the present, European thought bears the mark of Catholicism, the original continental philosophy.

Mystery constitutes the very furthest reaches of our experience, transcending the mundane and the everyday and pushing the very limits of human understanding.  It comprises that about ourselves and the universe which we ascribe the most supreme importance to and yet that about which we are least capable of comprehending.  We cannot look upon mysteries and say what they are made of, what caused them, or how they are sustained.  They impress themselves upon us as unsolvable puzzles, eluding our reason and senses but ultimately making their presence known.  This thesis is an attempt to establish a distinction between the average and everyday and the mysterious, drawing from what are often considered “common” examples of mysteries as examples: love, death, spirituality/ God, inspiration, and the self.  The paper is broken up into three sections: first, a discussion of what sets the mysterious apart from the average and everyday, second, a discussion of what lies at the very basis of our mysterious experience, and third, the role that mystery plays in our humanity.

The purpose of this brief paper is to elucidate the concept of the person as a member of a communal or civil society. It will try to answer the question as to what makes a person a person, and the corollary question as to how the person should be related to communal society.

This is a Sample Extract from Paul-Louis Landsberg's 'The Experience of Death', the Kerr translation revised and edited by Edouard d'Araille. Paul-Louis Landsberg's 'The Experience of Death' is an extended essay philosophical essay on the nature of Death by a key Existentialist Philosopher who died in a German concentration camp. Part of the group embracing Sartre, Camus and de Beauvoir, Landsberg's essay is worth readin alongside the sections on death from Martin Heidegger's 'Being and Time' ('Sein und Zeit'). It is perhaps the most impactful analysis of death by any of the existentialist philosopher if not by all known authors. This extract includes a page which providesd more biographical information on Landsberg and a brief bibliography of his most significant works. The very first chapter from this essay is included in this sample. The actual essay (as published) is followed by an equally trenchant essay on the nature of suicide. Landsberg approaches his subject from the Christian point-of-view as well as that of a secular existentialist. He was himself a Christian yet he did not force this belief upon readers through his writing. A book that makes a deep impact upon anyone who dares to accompany the author on his dark yet exciting exploration of the ultimate 'end'.

O estudo desta carta inédita, escrita em 1943 por Jean-Paul Sartre a Gabriel Marcel, conservada na Seção NAF228348 no Departamento de Manuscritos da Biblioteca Nacional Francesa (BNF), permite conhecer a evolução da relação entre os dois filósofos e dramaturgos. Apesar dos evidentes pontos comuns –a primazia da existência e a noção de “situação” –, a divergência acerca da concepção de transcendência se intensifica, tornando o diálogo impossível.

Marcel is a thinker who has generally been ignored in the field of rhetoric and philosophy of communication, but he is perhaps one of the most relevant thinkers at this moment in time, which is characterized by narcissism, materialism, and technological addictions. The impact of these obsessions is manifest in the overall rise in mental pathologies and generalized angst and cynicism. A fulfilling human existence, Marcel teaches us, must be sought outside of the technological mindset, in our lived experience with others and in a spiritual quest that protects the mystery of the human condition. The existential life that Marcel envisions as fulfilling is grounded in lived experience, flesh, communion, communication, and participation with others. Marcel does not fall prey to pessimism, despair, or cynicism, nor giddy optimism; he offers authentic hope that emerges through our struggles for meaning and engagement with fellow human beings and resistance to a technological society that wants to absorb our essence, stifle our being, enslave us, and disconnect us from ourselves (our bodies) and the world around us. Whether in the form of agape or philia, our intersubjective participation with others in the mystery of being is what makes existence meaningful.

This paper explores Gabriel Marcel's concept of availability and his account of intersubjectivity.
When it comes to (French) phenomenological accounts of intersubjectivity, the study of Gabriel Marcel is often discarded in favour of Sartre, Levinas, and Merleau-Ponty. But as brilliant as their accounts may be, it seems that those philosophers do not completely succeed in explaining our diverse and complex relationships with others. Sartre’s account seems to make reciprocal, non-conflictual relationships impossible; the encounter with the face of the other of Levinas’ intersubjectivity is abstract and distant from our concrete experience of others; and Merleau-Ponty’s analysis of the experience of the other is mainly perceptual and fails to capture the affective component of our relations with other. Gabriel Marcel’s account of intersubjectivity is an alternative to explore. He offers a phenomenological analysis of the encounter with the other and of the transformation of the self it provokes. His account of intersubjectivity is both comprehensive – it seems to apply to any kind of relationship with the other – and concrete – it remains very close to our daily experience of others. This makes Marcel’s account compelling and worthy of attention.
In this paper, I will present Marcel’s account of intersubjectivity and argue that it has many advantages. He distinguishes between two fundamental attitudes towards the other: availability and unavailability. Special attention will be given to this distinction because availability is necessary for a genuine experience of intersubjectivity. We will see that when unavailable, the subject is preoccupied by herself only and sees others as objects. She is then unable to experience the other as a free subject. But when available, the subject is open to the other and is able to forget about herself. She can then experience the other as other. This creates a communion between both beings that transforms them and reveals their true selves. For Marcel, intersubjectivity is thus constitutive of the self. I will explain this by presenting and specifying Marcel’s analysis of the experience of the available other. I will then consider experiences of others when the self or the other is not available. This will enable me to demonstrate that Marcel’s understanding of intersubjectivity is concrete and can well account for all the types of relationships that we have with others. Lastly, I will argue that the study of the attitude of availability has advantages over the study of empathy and compassion for the understanding of intersubjectivity.

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Artykuł przedstawia etyczny wymiar refleksji filozoficznej Gabriela Marcela. Na tle szeregu obecnych w niej kategorii (m.in. próba, zdrada, wspólnota, ofiara, obecność, rozporządzalność, intersubiektywność, miłość) zostaje ona określona mianem heterocentrycznej. Pojęcie to, zaczerpnięte z pism samego Marcela, znajduje tu zastosowanie w celu odróżnienia od ugruntowanych już w literaturze przedmiotu, ale dotyczących zwłaszcza koncepcji późniejszych, nazw w rodzaju „filozofia innego” czy „dialektyka tożsamości i różnicy”; w ogólności dotyczy postawy zwrócenia się ku temu, co inne, które zarazem prowadzi do wewnętrznego samoodzyskania. Przed znajdującym się w drodze człowiekiem stoi zadanie odpowiedzi na wezwanie płynące zarówno z jego wnętrza, jak i z czegoś poza; ostatecznie jego celem staje się, by umocować własne istnienie w głębi rzeczywistości, która je przekracza. Wskazane przy tym zostaje, że etyka Marcela nie unika ontologii, a odpowiedź na pytanie o to, jak żyć, jest nierozerwalnie złączona z refleksją nad byciem.

(słowa kluczowe pod tekstem pochodzą od redakcji)

مشكلة الحب
من مجموعة مشكلات فلسفية : ٥

تأليف: الدكتور زكريّا إبراهيم (1924-1976)
إعادة نشر الفهرس التحليلي للطبعة الثانية (1970-مكتبة مصر الفجالة). الطبعة الآولى (1964).

فيما يلى إعادة نشر الفهرس التحليلي للبحث المنشور "مشكلة الحب" وهي المشكلة الخامسة من سلسلة "مشكلات فلسفية" التى أشتهر بها الدكتور زكريّا إبراهيم.
الفهرس التحليلي يعد طريقة مبتكرة وغير شائعة تجمع بين التصميم المعروف للفهرس (قائمة المحتويات) وما يحتويه من عناوين مباحث الفصول الفرعيّة المختصرة لأبواب المتن/المحتوى وبين عناوين تحليلية إضافية تمثل "كلمات دالة keywords". تتميز هذه الطريقة بمرونة إضافة المؤلف لجمل توضيحية وكلمات دالة تحلل من المحتوى في نقاط تلخيصية. إستخدم هنا المؤلف الجمل القصيرة المتتابعة، بحيث تفصلها العلامة (--) مكونة في النهاية قطع نصيّة تعقب عنوان كل فصل.

Essay, 2020
Gabriel Marcel is a French philosopher known for his work on is the examination into Being, taking the Body as the central place of existing. Unlike other methodological thinkers, Marcel is rather engaged in metaphysical inquiry and discovery. He is engaged with a concrete life, experience, the daily flow of actions and thoughts; outside the scope of what already-fleshed-out theories are there to tell us. In this flow Marcel examines the Body and its connection with mind (dualism), as well as the question of possessing the Body not as a "Problem", but as a "Mystery".

By the advent of the 21st century, the world is slowly succumbing (if not succumbed) to a certain 'broken-ness'. Man's identity and dignity is continually undermined as societies wage war against each other. This is all because we have failed to reflect on the presence of the other. These are the very same reflections made by French Existentialist, Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973) during his 1949 Gifford Lectures. Hence the question remains: how do we hope in the midst of our broken world? This paper shall attempt to answer this question by going back once again to Marcel's reflections on the human experience of hope and how this aids us in liberating our world from its broken-ness. It focuses on an aspect of his phenomenology and metaphysic of hope wherein he implicitly relates hope to liberty. Here he explains that in hoping, a person sets his mind to the thought that everything is not lost even though there is no more way out. This attitude enables the person to be in the state of relaxation, or what Marcel would call, liberty. In the event of a hope-towards-liberation, man seeks the assurance of the Absolute Thou (God) for an authentic liberation. Which is why for Marcel, faith is never to be separated from hope. Since, it is through faith that a person quietly affirms his belief in the Absolute Thou. This hope, likewise, provides man with an avenue for a communion with God. It must not only be contained within oneself, rather, it must be extended from one's self to the other. This bond between the self and the other through the Absolute, is what Marcel calls, love. True liberation, in the end, is rooted in these three virtues of hope, faith, love and their end, God or the Absolute Thou.

As modernization produced a more liberal modern world, the society now needs to reflect on this situation and be awakened of the need to go back and focus on its very foundation: family, the basic unit of the society. However, the way of life of families was also changed by the negative effects of modernization, resulting to the increasing number of cases of broken families, cases of divorce, annulment and the improper formation of children. This paper aims to look at the situation of Filipino families as it delves on how the Filipino families have changed from its traditional roots to the landscape that is the Filipino family is at today. In order for one to have a realization of what an epitome of a Filipino family could be, the research uses Gabriel Marcel's lecture entitled The Mystery of the Family to offer a new perspective and proper lenses on how one must look at today's situation of the Filipino family. Issues regarding adultery, divorce, annulment and child formation in particular will be discussed appropriately using Marcel's thoughts on the family. These thoughts are mainly his discussion on the person and the pact between person and life, creative fidelity and hope from the said essay

The foremost subject of this paper is Gabriel Marcel's Existential Fulcrum, along with the overarching goal of being able to identify and provide discourses of its relation to the phenomenology of commuting. The objective of the paper is to construct connections as to how the daily experience of commuting is relevant in realizing and knowing one's existential being in the light of Gabriel Marcel's philosophy. The everyday travelling through public transportation in today's time has been customary for people especially those in the workplace and even to students. Accordingly, this paper shall be a moving factor to appreciate the time that one allots during commuting to make it a moment of realizations, specifically of reflection through which how Marcel considers it to be. Through examining two philosophical fields namely phenomenology and existentialism, the study will trace the convergences of the two to answer how could an individual know of his full existence through reflection during the hours of commuting.

Diskursus metafisika  kerap kali melemparkan nalar manusia sampai pada terra incognita (wilayah tak bertuan). Metafisika bergerak  dengan  menusuk  tajam  pada  kesadaran  akal sembari melepaskan batasan ketat yang selama ini mengurungnya. Kenikmatan bermetafisika secara akademis hampir pasti didapatkan dengan menelusuri jejak-jejaknya dalam ranah filsafat, terutama filsafat  transendental  Immanuel  Kant.  Hal  ini  bisa  dimengerti karena metafisika yang dimaksud di sini tidak membiarkannya kabur dengan jalan pintas mitos dan menyerahkan begitu saja kebuntuan problematika kehidupan melulu pada logika gerombolan yang ngotot mengantri di sempitnya “lubang jarum surgawi”. Metafisika justru mengajak siapapun untuk menemukan dirinya dalam kesendirian dengan disertai perangkat refleksi kritis dan menyadari bahwa dia berada dalam lubang pekat (the black hole) semesta. Dengan situasi itulah, kita memulai petualangan dalam berfilsafat. Tema metafisika yang dibahas dalam buku ini adalah kebersamaan, kekuasaan, kebebasan, kejahatan, dan cyberspace.

Existentialism is usually considered to be a philosophy of the individual selfaffirmation. However, the existential philosophy of Gabriel Marcel stresses belonging (participation) and community as the core concepts to understand human existence. Human existence belongs to the world, to other fellow beings, to Being itself and to the Transcendent. By stressing belonging, Marcel gives a radical new perspective on freedom
and metaphysics, for being can only be welcomed, and the whole dynamics of freedom is about answering to the Other’s calling. This peculiar kind of existentialism, thus, can play a major role today in the philosophical debate, mainly by avoiding the dialectical opposition
between the Self and the Other. Marcel’s philosophy offers some central insights on the meaning of the word “with”, and, thus, questions our understanding of community and being-with.

In this work we shall present the centrality of the we in Gabriel Marcel’s me-taphysics. In the first place, we will analize the notion of participation, and how it defines essentially personal existence, for we should attend to themeaning of being and existence. In the second place, taking intersubjective experience as a starting point, we will show that participation –now called us-ness (nostrité)-, is previous to the reality of the I and the Thou. Our main objective is to point out the importance of Marcel’s metaphysics of usness in actual philosophy, which central task is to think selfhood and alterity.

La dignidad del hombre y su fundamento. Este es el tema que la presente investigación filosófica busca dilucidar, conducidos para ello de la mano de Gabriel Marcel, grande filósofo francés contemporáneo cuyo pensamiento ahonda sus raíces en la vertiente del existencialismo cristiano de inicios del siglo XX. Para ello, se buscará argumentar que toda persona humana tiene una dignidad inalienable e igualitaria desde el momento de su concepción hasta la muerte, la cual encuentra su origen último en el hecho de ser creatura e hijo de Dios, y al mismo tiempo, por el hecho de ser persona: sustancia individual de naturaleza racional . Y todo esto, será expuesto desde una perspectiva existencialista, permeada de una visión cristiana del mundo.
El presente trabajo constará de tres partes: en primer lugar, se ofrecerá una exposición del contexto histórico-filosófico acerca de la vida de Gabriel Marcel y de la corriente filosófica en la que puede enmarcarse, es decir, del existencialismo cristiano. Luego, se desarrollará el concepto y el fundamento de la dignidad del hombre que ofrece Marcel, tal como se presenta en su libro La dignidad humana y sus matrices existenciales . Por último, se realizará un análisis comparativo, desde el punto de vista fenomenológico y metafísico, de la dignidad de la persona humana con el pensamiento marceliano al respecto.

Despair (as technic) takes away from authentic communication and authentic human relationships, because these relationships cause presences—which are infinite—to form within us, lasting longer than any piece of technology. Technology has taken the place of people, of mystery, and the qualities that make us human, such as our active engagement with Being, notably through intersubjective relationships. Authentic human relationships, those which form community, are what prevent despair.

The relationship of the father to child opens up a fruitful discussion regarding ethics for both Gabriel Marcel and Emmanuel Levinas. For both, it is a presentation of the face of an Other, a Stranger who leads me to ethics. Yet, in the child I find an Other who is–or at least seems–not quite wholly other. Who is, as Levinas puts it, " me a stranger to myself. " By reading the concluding sections of Totality and Infinity on eros and paternity together with the chapter " The Creative Vow as Essence of Fatherhood " in Homo Viator, I dig further into the relationality of paternity as presented in these two thinkers and, while acknowledging the differences between them, highlight the common emphasis put on the uniqueness of paternity–and at its heart, eros– and the ethical encounter found in the face of the Child-Other. The juxtaposition of the two authors provides the forum for asking just how other the child is from the father, as well as about the precise nature of the ethical command as given from son to father. In particular, I argue that Marcel's insistence that fatherhood is not automatically received through generation, but is freely taken on in light of a recognition of responsibility can supplement Levinas' own analyses, and further develop the unique place of the child as an Other who leads me towards ethics. Finally I look at Marcel's notion of creative fidelity in order to argue that there is something unique about the ethical command as received at the (foresight t of the child, seen as the product of eros and the locus of the family, which presents itself differently than in light of the Neighbor-Other or Erotic-Other.

This paper attempts to reexamine the relationship
between metaphysics and psychology. It proposes that
the rejection of metaphysics in psychology is due to a conception
of metaphysics in more traditional terms, despite
the fact that much of psychology is influenced by this
traditional metaphysics. Our proposal is to look at metaphysics
in a way that emphasizes the personal. By accomplishing
this paradigm shift, psychology can be seen as
intrinsically harmonious with an underlying metaphysical
position accurately reflecting lived human existence.

The Conscience of Time in Spinoza and Boutang. Boutang's Objection to Spinoza in the Resolution of the Ontologie du secret. This article aims to compare the relation to time and eternity in Spinoza and Boutang. Why such an attempt? Boutang, in footnote nr. 442 of the last chapter of his book Ontologie du secret, objects to Spinoza, who rejects all ontological content of the future and therefore condemns substance to be an "eternal past". On the contrary, Boutang seeks an ontological participation via a subjective imitation of the Trinitarian person, who would act in the modal reality. This requires a change in the "consciousness of time" by understanding Time not as a thing, but as something related to Creation itself, in order to finally confer an ontological content to the future as a project. As a result, both conceptions are in opposition to the status of the substance and God to find the effective participation (called the "third kind of knowledge" in Spinoza). Nevertheless, they can get closer regarding the search of a subject's metamorphosis in the very duration via a specific participation to eternity which Boutang calls "other time", and more metaphorically "oblique corridor". Consequently, this "consciousness of an other time" fills an important gap that remains in the proposition 23, V of the Ethic, which divides consciousness between understanding and imagination at the expense of conscience itself. Pourquoi étudier le rapport entre deux philosophes qui semblent assez différents dans leur approche du temps, c'est-à-dire Spinoza et Boutang ? En effet, les deux auteurs ont une lecture opposée de la religion chrétienne, ce qui nous servira de

In numerous articles and reviews, Gabriel Marcel advanced stimulating and still relevant ideas on the complex relationship between the listener and the musical work. He made a fundamental distinction between hearing and understanding music. He analyzed in some detail the notions of musical idea and musical presence. The purpose of this paper is to present Marcel's original views on the chief elements of our experience of classical music. It also seeks to highlight some of the benets of active music making for our life today.

Este artículo es una reflexión de la crítica de Gabriel Marcel sobre la tecnología; proponiendo las líneas de fuerza de su pensamiento, poniéndolas en el contexto en el que fue escrita. Continúa la reflexión de Marcel aplicando sus intuiciones a la situación de nuestro mundo tecnificado, especialmente en lo que se refiere a las redes sociales. Es una introducción viva al pensamiento del autor francés no desde un punto de vista sistemático, sino desde el diálogo con su pensamiento.

O artigo pretende meditar a questão do que significa filosofia e a consequente crítica marceliana de uma determinada forma de se estudar e lecionar a história da filosofia. Assim como Marcel e outros filósofos franceses já constatavam a necessidade de uma filosofia da história da filosofia, para não recair numa exposição de uma multiplicidade de filósofos, um ao lado do outro, como numa “vitrine” que expõe produtos à venda, da mesma forma e radicalidade é
preciso pensar e fazer uma filosofia do ensino da filosofia. Sem isto a aula de filosofia se reduz à reprodução de ideias e resumos de obras de filosofia com seus respectivos contextos históricos, sem, porém, conduzir o estudioso a uma experiência existencial disto. É preciso co-fazer com o filósofo estudado, na aula ou leitura pessoal, a mesma via-gem, o mesmo per-curso per-corrido pelo filósofo numa determinada obra clássica de filosofia e não apenas ser informado sobre suas ideias, num “espírito de abstração”, tornando-se apto para fazer “provas”, sem, contudo, encarná-las ou apropriá-las.

Humanity is on the threshold of recognizing the fundamental error in its view of life and death. Both death as well as active life is necessary to the vital formation of a larger, more essential whole. In this paper, I apply the sociology of knowledge and change as it pertains to death and focus on ways in which we can step outside its traditional frameworks and limitations. I also discuss topics related to death such as birth, aging, sickness, and war, and examine cultural differences in attitudes toward death. I offer varying perspectives including the Buddhist view and from these draw implications and conclusions. I apply the lenses of contemporary social scientists such as Edgar Morin, Kenneth Gergen, Edward Stewart, Milton Bennett, Mary Catherine Bateson, E. Doyle McCarthy, Philip Slater, and Piotr Sztompka. To these I add other relevant passages from the writings and speeches of key thinkers on the topic of death, in particular, Buddhist philosopher, peacebuilder, and educator, Daisaku Ikeda. To construct a more humanistic and sustainable view of life, it is first of all crucial to establish a culture which perceives death in its larger living context as but one cycle in the expansive eternity of life.

This is the complete 'Introduction' to Guido De Ruggiero's 'Existentialism' written by Rayner Heppenstall. It is an amazing introductory essay that provides a fascinating welcome to the philosophy of existentialism in a a different way to the book as a whole. It is a unique book in that it was the first proper study of the philosophy of existentialism and it is refreshing for its critical approach and deep discussion of the issues at the heart of this philosophy. I re-edited the excellent translation of Rayner Heppenstall for this book and his outstanding introduction is included, which provides another perspective on the history of Existentialism than that of De Ruggiero. The British Philosopher Collingwood translated De Ruggiero's more substantial history of modern philosophy, to which this is in a way an addenda as the subject material had not been included in that book. My task was that of re-presenting this deep study of 'Existentialism', and I have included the complete textual annotations and added some images and a brief editor's note so as to complete the volume. The key figures studied in this volume are Soren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers and Gabriel Marcel though De Ruggiero (and Heppenstall in his introduction also) make reference to many other existential authors and tackle the 'Philosophy of Existence' as a movement of thought that is is need of some measured appraisal. The introductory essay will give you a good taste of the subject matter of Guido De Ruggieo's study.

This research paper entitled, Acts of Impurity: Perceived Role of Issue on Clerical Sexual Abuse on Seminarian’s Vocation, is an attempt to find out the perceived effects of the issue about clerical sexual abuse on seminarians’ decision to pursue or not their vocation. Along the lines of every data and analysis, variables about forms of sexual abuse, types of abuse, and measures taken by the church are concisely explained. Factors concerning the topic like, the recent reports and old news that are being restored to alarm the faithful are discussed and thoroughly presented in a way that the readers will easily understand. The results of the data are tabulated and computed by the researcher using the relative frequency method and the perception of the seminarians are based on the conducted survey consisting of a researcher-designed questionnaire. The gathered data consists the demographic profile of the respondents, the reception and perception of the respondents, and the measures taken by the church. Towards the end of the paper, a conclusion summarizing the thesis as a whole and a resolution provided by the researcher can be clearly understood, reflecting the notion of a quantitative and descriptive research based on fidelity to faith using a Marcelian approach.