Gabriel (-Honoré) Marcel
First published Tue Nov 16, 2004; substantive revision Wed Nov 17, 2004
Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973) was a philosopher, drama critic, playwright and musician. He converted to Catholicism in 1929 and his philosophy was later described as “Christian Existentialism” (most famously in Jean-Paul Sartre's “Existentialism is a Humanism”) a term he initially endorsed but later repudiated. In addition to his numerous philosophical publications, he was the author of some thirty dramatic works. Marcel gave the Gifford Lectures in Aberdeen in 1949-1950, which appeared in print as the two-volume The Mystery of Being, and the William James Lectures at Harvard in 1961-1962, which were collected and published as The Existential Background of Human Dignity.
1. Biographical Sketch
2. The Broken World and the Functional Person
3. Ontological Exigence
4. Transcendence
5. Being and Having
6. Problem and Mystery
7. Primary and Secondary Reflection
8. The Spirit of Abstraction
9. Disponibilité and Indisponibilité
10. “With”
11. Reciprocity
12. Opinion, Conviction, Belief
13. Creative Fidelity
14. Hope
15. Marcel in Dialogue
