Gabriel Marcel

The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel

(Volume XVII, 1984)

The "theistic existentialism" of the French Catholic philosopher Gabriel Marcel is too little known in the English-speaking parts of the world, and too often assimilated uncritically to the philosophy of Sartre, to which it is in many respects diametrically opposed. Marcel preferred to call his thought "Neo-Socratic" to avoid this confusion.

Marcel strove for continuity in his philosophy. He developed his theme of the priority of existence over abstraction, for instance, from the cogito of Descartes. And although his critique of idealism and his defense of faith resemble Kierkegaard's criticism of Hegel, Marcel denies that faith is an irrational leap or that the individual stands alone in his faith.

This volume is the first comprehensive study of Marcel's thought. The variety and quality of the critical essays, as well as the immediacy of Marcel's own autobiography and replies (which take the form of personal letters) make this volume a major event in religious and cultural as well as philosophical thought. 

Table of Contents

Gabriel Marcel: An Autobiographical Essay

(replies follow essays)

Gabriel Marcel

(Replies follow essays)

E.M. Cioran: Gabriel Marcel: Notes for a Character Sketch 
Henry G. Bugbee: L'Exigence Ontologique 
Sam Keen: The Development of the Idea of Being in Marcel's Thought 
Erwin W. Straus/Michael A. Machado: Gabriel Marcel's Notion of Incarnate Being 
Alfred O. Schmitz: Marcel's Dialectical Method 
Otto Friedrich Bollnow: Marcel's Concept of Availability 
Pietro Prini: A Methodology of the Unverifiable 
Gene Reeves: The Idea of Mystery in the Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel 
John B. O'Malley: Marcel's Notion of Person 
Leo Gabriel: Marcel's Philosophy of the Second Person 
Richard M. Zaner: The Mystery of the Body-Qua-Mine 
John E. Smith: The Individual, the Collective, and the Community 
Charles Hartshorne: Marcel on God and Causality 
Kenneth T. Gallagher: Truth and Freedom in Marcel 
John V. Vigorito: On Time in the Philosophy of Marcel 
Hans A. Fischer-Barnicol: Systematic Motifs in the Thought of Gabriel Marcel: Toward a Philosophical Theory of Composition 
Robert Lechner: Marcel as Radical Empiricist 
Paul Ricoeur: Gabriel Marcel and Phenomenology 
Garth J. Gillan: The Question of Embodiment: Marcel and Merleau-Ponty 
John D. Glenn, Jr.: Marcel and Sartre: The Philosophy of Communion and the Philosophy of Alienation 
Julián Marías: Love in Marcel and Ortega 
Donald M. MacKinnon: Drama and Memory
Bibliography of the Writings of Gabriel Marcel