Abstract

This dissertation is an inquiry into a major philosophical theme of an important twentieth-century philosopher, Gabriel Marcel . ;During Marcel's successful forty-year career as a philosopher, playwright, editor, and lecturer, he treated many crucial and timely philosophical themes. We know them as "Being," "mystery," "problem," "functionalization," "second reflection," "supertemporalization," disponibilite, and "creative fidelity." However one theme, that of the ontological exigency, stands as the master key to Marcel's entire philosophical and dramatic work. It is in the study of the ontological exigency that we find not only the significance of Marcel's aforementioned themes but more importantly, the true direction and destination of his thought. ;Marcel was deeply concerned with what he believed to be an absence of the contemporary individual's understanding of ontological experience. Consequently, this absence of ontological understanding also means a lack of the contemporary individual's participation in Being. Thus, it became critical for Marcel to discover why this is and what is more, to demonstrate how we are able to recover an understanding of the ontological and reintegrate it experientially into our lives. ;This work is an orderly account of how the ontological exigency is fulfilled. In and through an examination of Marcel's inquiry into who we really are as human beings and the levels of participation in which we are involved, we will come to see why there is a need for Being and how we come to fulfill our need for Being. ;My examination includes a careful study of Marcel's definition of Being, his understanding of the contemporary situation, his distinction between mystery and problem, his distinction between first and second reflection, and how we participate in Being. In order to understand best Marcel's notion of participation, we will look at the meaning of second reflection, the time-lasting domain of the supratemporal, the disposition of disponibilite in and through love and hope, and the active presence of faith in creative fidelity