Talk:Gabriel Marcel

Coined "Existentialism"?
I added a fact check to the assertion that Marcel coined the word "existentialism." I have always heard that the word was coined by either Sartre, or by the media and that Sartre applied it to his own philosophy.

Niasain 18:04, 30 September 2006 (UTC)


 * It might be correct. Maybe I should check. He was around before Sartre, as far as I know. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 00:03, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Bibliography comment
I took out the "much of his work remains without English translation". At McMaster U. in Hamilton, we had a lot of his works in the library, in English. I don't think there's much of his actual philosophical works that we didn't have an English translation of.

I'll try to add something to this page in the future, to maybe flesh things out a bit. It's too bad more isn't said about Marcel here right now, as I really think he was one of the more remarkable existentialists.

philosophy comment
These are only my opinions, I'm only a guy who did his 4th-year essay on Marcel, and I will accede to anyone who has more knowledge about it than me. But, with that in mind:


 * QUOTE - Marcel argued that scientific thought had squeezed the life out of human experience, by replacing the "mystery" of being with a false scenario of life composed of "problems" and "solutions."

I don't think this is exactly right; I remember Marcel's problem with Technology (e.g. in Man Against Mass Society) was that it degraded the subjective being to the status of an object. E.g., behaviourism, advertising, propaganda and other deterministic soft sciences ("technics"), which themselves function according to the same rules of "egoism" that he attacks in individuals as an annihilation of another's subjectivity.

His stronger point (and I inferred this more from Homo Viator and The Existential Background..., though it's really the focal point of Man Against Mass Society) was that because of science's special authority, it was more able to make a person accept his place as an 'it' instead of a 'thou' in the internal dialogue between science and itself. And further, that this is a creeping new phenomenon. It sorta knocked me out when I read almost the same argument a few years later in Kaczynski's "Industrial Society and its Future", though I've still never met anyone who's read both authors so maybe I'm hallucinating it all.

But, in "The Existential Background of Human Dignity", he writes:

'' The great majority of men are merely consumers and to that extent wholly dependent. They are thereby self-condemned to a new kind of slavery the true nature of which is, moreover, concealed from itself. Nor should we overlook the fact that this slavery is actually a consequence of the omnipresence of advertising, which is itself organically connected with industrial development. Those who produce television sets or refrigerators must be able to create an environment capable of absorbing them.''


 * QUOTE - Marcel is often classified as being of the earliest existentialists, although dreaded being described as being in the same class as the atheistic Jean-Paul Sartre - he himself preferred the term "neo-Socratic". Sartre emphasized people's ability to create themselves with freedom and autonomy, which Marcel viewed as a mistake.

I disagree with this Sartre-Marcel contrast. I am under the impression that Macel's problem with Sartre was that Sartre held that ALL human-human interaction involved a person's subjectivity being annihilated as he is turned into the "other". This being that another person can only ever perceive you as an object. Marcel, in contrast, held that (sometimes) people could perceive each other as subjects (the I-Thou situation).

Marcel was generally a more optimistic and happy sort than Sartre. I'm sure, from my reaction to his works, that he also didn't feel atheism was the problem.

And, well, if Marcel didn't believe you could create yourself with freedom and autonomy, then how exactly is he an existentialist?


 * QUOTE - Marcel taught that the goal of life is true communion with God, which meant opposing both modern materialism and a technologically driven society.

I don't remember deus ex machina ever coming into his works, when I read them, nor was he ever an evangelist. He was remarkable to me as a Christian philosopher who didn't rely in the slightest on religion to make his points.

And to address this in particular, you are not to oppose modern materialism and a technologically driven society in order to achieve communion with God! You are to oppose the technics of objectification (such as those in modern technological society) because they annihilate subjectivity (= "degradation" in Marcel's terminology). And you're to do so (according to "The Existential Background of Human Dignity", anyway) by making people feel the "bite of the real", purposefully inciting self-reflective thought. The end isn't a mass of god-worshippers, it's a single individual whose religion is unimportant except in that the individual may be genuine and EXISTENTIAL in his belief.

I've added a whole lot
I wrote the last two sections, above, what seems like years ago. Nobody has discussed what I wrote, so I'm going to be bold, take ownership of this article, and try to improve it a bit.

Note, I have no clue about advanced style, so feel free to come in and make this page look better. The 3 footnotes I added are my first 3 ever at Wikipedia.

If you have a problem with what I've done and want to talk about it, feel free to go to my talk page. It's probably the only way you'll be able to get my attention. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad 23:33, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

More into this Article
Some one shoul re-organize this article to better standards. Add a section for his Ideas. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mattawa (talk • contribs) 14:00, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 04:02, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Anon. comments
I think you should re-think about me entries, especially about the Mystery og Being of Marcel and enrich your text in Wikipedia about Marcel. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.49.217.61 (talk) 18:25, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * No, you have to prove that your information is relevant, correct, properly cited in notable publications, and does not indicate a conflict-of-interest on your part. Then, we can allow the information to be included.  Thank you. ---  RepublicanJacobite  The'FortyFive'  18:57, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Marcel is dead. Where is the conflict of interest that you see? AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 17:14, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

All my information is relevant because it is just a synopsis of the books by Marcel. So, the Metaphysics of Light is inluded in his book The Mystery of Being anf the concept of Transcendence is on his book Homo Viator. Now, it is all with the right sources, the cites I give are in the Gifford Lectures and I just made the whole text a lot, lot better than censorship. No conlict of interest arises, as well, from my part... Please, search my texts in the past editions and re-enter it...77.49.99.10 (talk) 15:06, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi, I've contributed to this article in the past, and I appreciate your effort, anon. However, I haven't re-added it because... well... it just doesn't come across as encyclopedic, or accessible to the layman. If you can provide explanations for all the terminology you use, and explain why it's notable, only using third-party sources (i.e., no synthesis on your part), and in language accessible to laymen, it would be a great and encyclopedic addition to the article. It's pathetic that the #4 thinker in the Existentialist canon (after Kierkegaard, Sartre and Camus) has such a skinny article, and while I'm not up to the task of improving it, I hope you can go ahead on this. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 17:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Repetition of word "in"
This says that Marcel was born and died in Paris; would it not be more succinct to say "Marcel was born and died in Paris"?Carltonio (talk) 21:16, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Kierkegaard
This article says that Kierkegaard was the founder of Christian existentialism. I wonder whether it should say "unintentional founder". I have always understood that during his fairly short life, Kierkegaard was little known outside of his native Denmark; only when his writings were translated into German after the First World War did his writings, thanks to philosophers such as Karl Jaspers, pave the way for existentialism. Carltonio (talk) 21:16, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

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Philosophy
Which of the following methods was introduced by Gabriel Marcel ? 131.226.85.210 (talk) 11:35, 3 October 2022 (UTC)