Gabriel Marcel

Gabriel Honoré Marcel (December 7, 1889 - October 8, 1973) was a philosopher and the leading existentialist Christian.

Born in Paris, France, Marcel was a devout Catholic, with an atheistic father. A gentle and flexible man, Marcel was opposed to anti-Semitism and supported closer connections to non-Catholics.

Gabriel Marcel coined the word existentialism after the First World War, while he was still an atheist. In 1929 he converted to Catholicism. His great books are Mystery of Being (1950) and Man Against Society (1955).

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

He died in Paris in 1973.

Bibliography

Gabriel Marcel was a prolific writer, both of philosophical works and stage plays.

• Creative Fidelity. Translated, with an introduction, by Robert Rosthal. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Company,1964
• The Existential Background of Human Dignity. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963.
• Homo Viator. Translated by Edna Craufurd. Harper & Row, 1962.
• The Metaphysical Journal. Translated by Bernard Wall. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1950.
• The Mystery of Being, vol.1, Reflection and Mystery. Translated by G. S. Fraser. London: The Harvill Press, 1951
• The Mystery of Being, vol.2, Faith and Reality. Translated by René Hague. London: The Harvill Press,1951
• Man Against Mass Society. Translated by G. S. Fraser. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1962
• Presence and Immortality. Translated by Michael A. Machado. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1967
• Problematic Man. Translated by Brian Thompson. New York City: Herder and Herder, 1967.
• Tragic Wisdom and Beyond. Translated by Stephen Jolin and Peter McCormick. Publication of the Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, ed. John Wild. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1973
• The Philosophy of Existentialism. Translated by Manya Harari. New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1995

External links

• Gabriel (-Honoré) Marcel-Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

See also

• Personalism

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