The article focuses on one of the central themes of Gabriel Marcel’s thought: the afterlife and the presence of the dead. Marcel approaches such a “mystery” through his plays, one of the most important aspects of his thought.

Les femmes, à l’époque moderne, admettent, en règle générale, la soumission requise par le clergé masculin. Mais il en est qui résistent. Ce sont des chrétiennes aux fortes personnalités – Thérèse d’Avila, au xvie siècle, ou Gabrielle Suchon, au xviie siècle – mais aussi des communautés religieuses féminines, comme celle de Port-Royal, au xviie siècle et d’autres, moins connues. Ces manifestations d’indépendance, plutôt que de rébellion ouverte, sont particulièrement visibles lorsque ces femmes se sentent investies d’une mission divine, c’est le (...) cas, par exemple, des mystiques. (shrink)

In this interesting book, Marcel Lieberman develops a novel and sustained argument for moral realism. He focuses on the psychological phenomenon of commitment, and argues that commitments psychologically require realist beliefs: paradigmatically, one cannot be committed to, say, social equality, without believing that social equality is genuinely valuable. In so arguing, he disagrees with those, on both sides of the debate over moral realism, who have argued that moral realism makes little practical difference. He draws on and criticizes a number (...) of important and influential figures, most particularly Rorty, Gibbard and Velleman, but his range of reference goes well beyond familiar figures in contemporary metaethics, taking in also inter alii Ricoeur, Gabriel Marcel, and rational expectations theorists in economics. (shrink)

French existentialist philosopher Gabriel Marcel is one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century. The central themes of his philosophy, which are developed with a blend of realism, concreteness, and common sense, continue to be relevant for the plight of humanity in the twentieth-first century. All of Marcel’s important ideas are introduced here, ranging from his unique conception of philosophy; to his original approach to epistemology and the nature of knowledge; to his view on the nature of (...) the human person, including the idea of beingin- a-situation and the importance of the “context” that the subject lives in for the subject’s ideas and experiences; to his approach to religious themes, including the issues of the rationality of religious belief, the question of God’s existence, and our longing for the transcendent; and his “concrete approaches” of fidelity, hope, love and faith. There are also selections in which he discusses some of his misgivings about the direction of contemporary culture, especially the effects of technology. (shrink)

Gabriel Marcel’s writings stand in a complex relationship to Nietzsche’s thought. Paying homage to Nietzsche’s influence as one of the most eminent representatives of the existential thought, Marcel is aware that he deals with a thinker who is as distant from him as he is very close. Marcel’s references to Nietzsche’s thought are tied to Nietzsche’s expression “God is dead”, and the end of the divine is the theme that simultaneously highlights the greatness and the tragedy of Nietzsche. Marcel (...) accepts the contradictions of Nietzsche’s philosophical thought as both dangerous and fruitful. (shrink)

Introduction à la philosophie du penseur existentialiste chrétien.

Gabriel Marcel is a neosocratic philosopher, a permanent questioner in search for truth. His thought, which is not existentialist in a strict sense, is addressed to the other men and tries to arouse their hope and their ability to heart to heart dialogue.

Gabriel Marcel’s thought is deeply informed by the American philosophical tradition. Marcel’s earliest work focused upon the idealism of Josiah Royce. By the time Marcel completed his Royce writings, he had moved beyond idealism and adopted a form of metaphysical realism attributed to William Ernest Hocking. Marcel also developed a longstanding relationship with the American philosopher Henry Bugbee. These important philosophical relationships will be examined through the Marcellian themes of ontological exigence, intersubjective being, and secondary reflection. Marcel’s relationships with (...) these philosophers are not serendipitous. They are expressions of Marcel’s deep Christian faith. (shrink)

This article offers an examination of the mystery of suffering in Gabriel Marcel’s works. It will be shown that a suffering ethics can be found in his philosophy: the suffering presents itself as an ordeal that we must overcome to save our being.

In Gabriel Marcel and American Philosophy, David W. Rodick investigates Gabriel Marcel's relationship to classical American philosophy—more specifically, to Josiah Royce's idealism, William James's radical empiricism, William Ernest Hocking's empiricism, and Henry G. Bugbee's experiential naturalism—to provide Marcel scholars and scholars of classical American philosophy with a fruitful perspective for understanding Marcel's thought. He also seeks to capture Marcel's dynamic and concrete approach to philosophizing along with examining its "relevance to the contemporary world—a world in which philosophy, confined (...) to the ivory tower, remains at risk of becoming somewhat of a caricature of itself". In... (shrink)

Gabriel Marcel is not typically read as a political theorist and social commentator. He never wrote a treatise devoted specifically to a systematic treatmentof politics. His writings, nevertheless, abound in political theorizing and social analysis. This study articulates Marcel’s socio-political thought, explicating itscoherence with his overall concrete philosophy and with his personal engagement in political events of his time. It develops through three themes. The first details Marcel’s particular approach to sociopolitical thought as a “watchman.” The second shows why (...) Marcel offers a “hopeful communitarianism” which overcomes the problems of collectivism and individualism. The third delineates Marcel’s views on the concrete, socio-political, and ethical issues of peace and population control. A brief closing section explains the importance of politics in Marcelian scholarship and the “prophetic” quality of his thought. (shrink)

Gabriel Marcel is not typically read as a political theorist and social commentator. He never wrote a treatise devoted specifically to a systematic treatmentof politics. His writings, nevertheless, abound in political theorizing and social analysis. This study articulates Marcel’s socio-political thought, explicating itscoherence with his overall concrete philosophy and with his personal engagement in political events of his time. It develops through three themes. The first details Marcel’s particular approach to sociopolitical thought as a “watchman.” The second shows why (...) Marcel offers a “hopeful communitarianism” which overcomes the problems of collectivism and individualism. The third delineates Marcel’s views on the concrete, socio-political, and ethical issues of peace and population control. A brief closing section explains the importance of politics in Marcelian scholarship and the “prophetic” quality of his thought. (shrink)

Gabriel Marcel is not typically read as a political theorist and social commentator. He never wrote a treatise devoted specifically to a systematic treatmentof politics. His writings, nevertheless, abound in political theorizing and social analysis. This study articulates Marcel’s socio-political thought, explicating itscoherence with his overall concrete philosophy and with his personal engagement in political events of his time. It develops through three themes. The first details Marcel’s particular approach to sociopolitical thought as a “watchman.” The second shows why (...) Marcel offers a “hopeful communitarianism” which overcomes the problems of collectivism and individualism. The third delineates Marcel’s views on the concrete, socio-political, and ethical issues of peace and population control. A brief closing section explains the importance of politics in Marcelian scholarship and the “prophetic” quality of his thought. (shrink)

The idea of ‘hope’ has received significant attention in the political sphere recently. But is hope just wishful thinking, or can it be something more than a political catch-phrase? This book argues that hope can be understood existentially, or on the basis of what it means to be human. Under this conception of hope, given to us by Gabriel Marcel, hope is not optimism, but the creation of ways for us to flourish. War, poverty and an absolute reliance on (...) technology are real-life evils that can suffocate hope. -/- Marcel’s thought provides a way to overcome these negative experiences. An ethics of hope can function as an alternative to isolation, dread, and anguish offered by most existentialists. This book presents Marcel’s existentialism as a convincing, relevant moral theory; founded on the creation of hope, interwoven with the individual’s response to the death of God. Jill Hernandez argues that today’s reader of Marcel can resonate with his belief that the experience of pain can be transcended through a philosophy of hope and an escape from materialism. (shrink)

Marcel is concerned with human existence or, better, with the quality of human life which we usually recognize more or less clearly under the concepts of freedom and responsibility. Such humanity is a de jure rather than a strictly de facto notion. We are always in danger of losing, caricaturing, or forfeiting our humanity and thus the adjective subhuman assumes a genuine significance, at least as indicating a limiting concept that stands as a warning before those "techniques of degradation," the (...) modern systems of mass propaganda and thought control. (shrink)

A comprehensive study of the thought of this French philosopher, the foremost Christian existentialist of this century.

Gabriel Marcel, un grand penseur français du XXe siècle, est l'auteur d'un grand nombre d'ouvrages et d'études philosophiques, d'une importante oeuvre théâtrale et de remarquables critiques musicales. La première partie de ce recueil est constituée par des études consacrées à l'oeuvre marcellienne lue selon ses grands thèmes et moments. La seconde partie, de textes bien plus nombreux, traite des rapports et des analogies entre Gabriel Marcel et certains de ses contemporains, notamment N. Berdiaeff, G. Thibon et E. Lévinas.

Gabriel Marcel spent most of his life developing a phenomenology of human intersubjectivity. While doing so he discovered the extent to which an authentic human community depends upon the relationship it has to nonhuman nature. By exploring Marcel’s critique of technology, as well as his religious phenomenology, I show the proximity to which Marcel’s philosophy approaches the currentegalitarian response of the radical ecology movement. Even though the bulk of Marcel’s work is concerned with human intersubjectivity, his writings advocate a (...) transcendence of anthropocentricism to what Marcel calls “cosmocentricism,” an existential attitude toward the world which submits to the sacredness of all beings, as well as to the bioregions within which all earthly creatures share the sacraments of life. (shrink)

The question of personal immortality is a central one for Gabriel Marcel. Early in his life he took part in parapsychological experiments which convincedhim that one could, rarely and with great difficulty, communicate with the dead. In a philosophical vein he argued that each self has an eternal dimension which isof eternal worth. This dimension is particularly manifest in self-sacrifice, where I find it meaningful to give my life for another and when I unconditionally commitment myself in love to (...) another self. Marcel also cites the experience of trust or hope, and the experience that life is not an absurd freak accident of nature destined for eternal extinction but rather possesses absolute meaning and value. Yet, none of the above experiences involves certitude; one remains free to accept or reject them and what they claim to involve. (shrink)

Artykuł przedstawia etyczny wymiar refleksji filozoficznej Gabriela Marcela. Na tle szeregu obecnych w niej kategorii 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. (shrink)