I.

BIOGRAPHY

French philosopher Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973) described man's place in the world
in terms of such fundamental human experiences as relationships, love, fidelity, hope,
and faith. His brand of existentialism was said to be largely unknown in the English-
speaking world, where it was mistakenly associated with that of Jean-Paul Sartre.
Marcel's view of the human condition was that "beings" are beset by tension, contradiction
and ambiguity. He was also interested in life's religious dimension and was considered
the first French existentialist philosopher.
Gabriel Marcel was born in Paris on Dec. 7, 1889, the only child of a distinguished
diplomat. His mother died when he was 4, and he was raised by an aunt whom his father
married. Although he had little visual memory of his mother, Marcel described her
continued "spiritual presence" during his youth as an important influence on his
thoughts—giving rise to an awareness of the "hidden polarity between the seen and the
unseen." At the age of 8 he began writing plays, and as an adult he would achieve a
reputation as a playwright as well as a philosopher. Marcel's plays, which flesh out the
basic issues of his philosophy, were performed in the early 1920s. Starting in his youth
he also displayed a keen ability to play music—an avocation which would also influence
his thinking.

II. SIGNIFICANT CONCEPT

A. METAPHYSICS
The great religious thinkers have told us that when we talk about God, we
do not know of what or who we speak of. It is easy to talk, because such a language
was formed over centuries and settled in our cultural layers, but a moment's
thought is enough to realize that unfortunately we do not really know of what or
who we talk about. Faith is a central theme for Marcel's metaphysics, this
constituting the object of his first questions. Marcel‟s search effectively ran as
magnetic by the Christian data, because his vision of man integrated the
transcendence and the encounter with God. What is fundamental in this marcelian
search is binding the existence to otherness and the priority of the communication
with each other. The meeting of "I" and "you" makes possible to flourish in
experience of a lived fullness, which causes a metaphysics of "we are", accessible
only through love, hope and faith and belief. The inter-subjectivity is essentially
openness to another and asks for a reciprocal opening. The world where each
deals with only with his own interests appears for Marcel as a broken world, a world
that has lost its meaning and the interior unit. The sense of the world is given by
the opportunity to return to ourselves, to ask ourselves about the being, to open
ourselves to the other, through communication and communion. Its philosophy is
based on the human existence, existence that has no consistency except through
participation in the Being.
 Finding oneself does not happen in an existence which is delimited by
others and by the divine transcendence, but in an open proexistence, both a giver
and a recipient – in a communion, in faith and love. This is the marcelian
metaphysics belief that certainly fits the measure of our faith and freedom.

B. ETHICS
The idea of 'hope' has received significant attention in the political sphere
recently. But is hope just wishful thinking, or can it be something more than a
political catch-phrase? This book argues that hope can be understood existentially,
or on the basis of what it means to be human. Under this conception of hope, given
to us by Gabriel Marcel, hope is not optimism, but the creation of ways for us to
flourish. War, poverty and an absolute reliance on technology are real-life evils that
can suffocate hope.

Marcel's thought provides a way to overcome these negative

experiences. An ethics of hope can function as an alternative to isolation, dread,
and anguish offered by most existentialists. This book presents Marcel's
existentialism as a convincing, relevant moral theory; founded on the creation of
hope, interwoven with the individual's response to the death of God. Jill Hernandez
argues that today's reader of Marcel can resonate with his belief that the
experience of pain can be transcended through a philosophy of hope and an
escape from materialism.

C. AESTHETICS
In the construction of the theoretical city in The Republic, Socrates argues
that when the appropriate kind of music is employed for the training of the youthful
guardians of the city, they will be more inclined toward the love of reason. Like a
fresh breeze blowing into a field, so music will bring health and life to the soul.
Socrates eloquently describes:
Let our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the true nature of
the beautiful and graceful; then will our youth dwell in a land of health, amid fair
sights and sounds, and receive the good in everything; and beauty, the effluence
of fair works, shall flow into the eye and ear, like a health-giving breeze from a
purer region and insensibly draw the soul from earliest years into likeness and
sympathy with the beauty of reason.
As they grow up, the youth of this theoretical city will only be exposed to
music, which uses the proper words, melody and rhythm to foster a love of reason.
Music will be carefully filtered to make sure that only certain words, which tell
stories of good virtues, are allowed to be sung, certain melodic sequences, which
are only found in the Dorian and Phrygian modes, are allowed to be used in
composition, and certain rhythmic patterns, which incite only the appropriate
emotions, are accepted. All of this is for the sake of cultivating a love of reason so
that the youth will better be able to discern the “true nature of the beautiful and
graceful.” “For,” Socrates asks, “what should be the end of music if not the love of
beauty?” The goal for the restrictions on art and music in the city is not to deprive
the guardians of pleasure for the sake of some kind of asceticism, but to use art to
all the more foster an environment which allows the youth to fall in love with reason
and to go after the beautiful.
In one of his more autobiographical lectures, “Music in My Life and Works,”
the 20th century existentialist philosopher, Gabriel Marcel, relates his own journey
directed by music toward the love of the beautiful and the love of truth. Music, for
him and for his family, was more than a hobby, as it played a significant role in
establishing familial relationships as well as expressing life values. Marcel’s
childhood mirrors Plato’s hopes for the youth of his city since he is surrounded by
music from birth, by his mother, his father, his aunt and his own playing, which
then “opened the road to Truth.” He recounts:
On this level my thought continues in the tradition of Schopenhauer . . . Of
course, I admit his pessimism, against which I have always protested without ever
forgetting that the world does seem on all sides to invite us to despair. But . . . it
seems to me that it is music and music alone that has caused me to discover the
saving light. It is music that has opened the road to Truth for me, towards which I
have not ceased striving, this Truth beyond all the partial truths that science
demonstrates and expounds, the Truth that illumines the work of the greatest
composers like Bach or Mozart.
Marcel finds that music revealed the notions of truth to him from an early
age and though he did not consciously understand this till much later, he is able to
look back and see how music was one of the primary stepping stones leading him
toward his idea of truth. To apply Plato’s terms, music was a use to him in that it
refined his rational abilities to follow after the beauty and the truth.
Marcel, however, would not apply the same type of restrictions to music (or
art) that Plato puts forward in The Republic. He often gravitated toward art that
expressed the despair that he found in his own life and in the world around him
which included many diverse art forms. Not that he would make no distinctions
between good and bad art, but he would argue that art promoting a multiplicity of
values was what gradually allowed him to discover hope and truth. The exploration
of other values allowed him the freedom to be gently led toward what he called,
“the saving light.” Nevertheless, the common thread between both Plato and
Marcel is significant: though the scope of music (and art) may be different, both
recognized that a greater love of truth and beauty can be gleamed from music.
III. PHILOSOPHER’S IDEA

A. BODY AND SOUL

Marcel was an early proponent of what would become a major Sartrean
existential tenet: I am my body. For Marcel, the body does not have instrumental
value, nor is it simply a part or extension of the self. Instead, the self cannot be
eradicated from the body. It is impossible for the self to conceive of the body in
any way at all except for as a distinct entity identified with the self. Existence is
prior, and existence is prior to any abstracting that we do on the basis of our
perception. Existence is indubitable, and existence is in opposition to the
abstraction of objectivity. That we are body, of course, naturally lends us to think
of the body in terms of object. But individuals who resort to seeing the self and the
world in terms of functionality are ontologically deficient because not only can they
not properly respond to the needs of others, but they have become isolated and
independent from others. It is our active freedom that prevents us from the snare
of objectifying the self, and which brings us into relationships with others.
When we are able to act freely, we can move away from the isolated
perspective of the problematic man (“I am body only,”) to that of the participative
subject (“I am a being among beings”) who is capable of interaction with others in
the world. Marcelian participation is possible through a special type of reflection
in which the subject views herself as a being among beings, rather than as an
object. This reflection is secondary reflection, and is distinguished from both
primary reflection and mere contemplation. Primary reflection explains the
relationship of an individual to the world based on her existence as an object in the
world, whereas secondary reflection takes as its point of departure the being of the
individual among others. The goal of primary reflection, then, is to problematize
the self and its relation to the world, and so it seeks to reduce and conquer
particular things. Marcel rejects primary reflection as applicable to ontological
matters because he believes it cannot understand the main metaphysical issue
involved in existence: the incommunicable experience of the body as
mine. Neither does mere contemplation suffice to explain this
phenomenon. Contemplation is existentially significant, because it indicates the
act by which the self concentrates its attention on its self, but such an act without
secondary reflection would result in the same egocentrism that Marcel attempts to
avoid through his work.
Secondary reflection has as its goal the explication of existence, which
cannot be separated from the individual, who is in turn situated among others. For
Marcel, an understanding of one’s being is only possible through secondary
reflection, since it is a reflection whereby the self asks itself how and from what
starting point the self is able to proceed. The existential impetus of secondary
reflection cannot be overemphasized for Marcel: Participation which involves the
presence of the self to the world is only possible if the temptation to assume the
self is wholly distinct from the world is overcome. The existential upshot is that
secondary reflection allows the individual to seek out others, and it dissolves the
dualism of primary reflection by realizing the lived body’s relation to the ego.
Reflexive reflection is the reflection of the exigent self. It occurs when the
subject is in communion with others, and is free and also dependent upon
others. Reflexive reflection is an inward looking that allows the self to be receptive
to the call of others. Yet, Marcel does not call on the participative subject to be
reflective for receptivity’s sake. Rather, the self cannot fully understand the
existential position without orientating itself to something other than the self.

B. FREEDOM AND INTELLECT

A strange inner mutation is spreading throughout humanity, according to
Marcel. As odd as it first seems, this mutation is evoked by the awareness that
members of humanity are contingent on conditions which make up the framework
for their very existence. Man recognizes that at root, he is an existing thing, but
he somehow feels compelled to prove his life is more significant than that. He
begins to believe that the things he surrounds himself with can make his life more
meaningful or valuable. This belief, says Marcel, has thrown man into a ghostly
state of quandary caused by a desire to possess rather than to be. All people
become a master of defining their individual selves by either their possessions or
by their professions. Meaning is forced into life through these venues. Even more,
individuals begin to believe that their lives have worth because they are tied to
these things, these objects. This devolution creates a situation in which individuals
experience the self only as a statement, as an object, “I am x.”
The objectification of the self through one’s possessions robs one of her
freedom, and separates her from the experiences of her own participation in
being. The idolatrous world of perverted possession must be abandoned if the
true reality of humanity is to be reached. Perhaps most known for his views on
freedom, Marcel gave to existentialism a view of freedom that marries the absolute
indeterminacy of traditional existentialism with Marcel’s view that transcendence
out of facticity can only come by depending upon others with the same goals. The
result is a type of freedom-by-degrees in which all people are free, since to be free
is to be self-governing, but not all people experience freedom that can lead them
out of objectification. The experience of freedom cannot be achieved unless the
subject extricates herself from the grip of egocentrism, since freedom is not simply
doing what desire dictates. The person who sees herself as autonomous within
herself has a freedom based on ill-fated egocentrism. She errs in believing
freedom to be rooted on independence.
Freedom is defined by Marcel in both a negative and positive
sense. Negatively, freedom is, “The absence of whatever resembles an alienation
from oneself,” and positively as when, “The motives of my action are within the
limits of what I can legitimately consider as the structural traits of myself,” Freedom,
then, is always about the possibilities of the self, understood within the confines of
relationships with others. As an existentialist, Marcel’s freedom is tied to the raw
experiences of the body. However, the phenomenology of Marcelian freedom is
characterized by his insistence that freedom is something to be experienced, and
the self is fully free when it is submerged in the possibilities of the self and the
needs of others. Although all humans have basic, autonomous freedom (Marcel
thought of this as “capricious” freedom), in virtue of their embodiment and
consciousness; only those persons who seek to experience being by freely
engaging with other free beings can break out of the facticity of the body and into
the fulfillment of being. The free act is significant because it contributes to defining
the self, “By freedom I am given back to myself,”
At first glance, Marcelian freedom is paradoxical: the more one enters into
a self-centered project, the less legitimate it is to say that the act is free, whereas
the more the self is engaged with other free individuals, the more the self is
free. However, the phenomenological experience of freedom is less paradoxical
when it is seen through the lens of the engagement of freedom. Ontologically, we
rarely have experiences of the singular self; instead, our experiences are bound to
those with whom we interact. Freedom based on the very participation that the
free act seeks to affirm is the ground of the true experience of freedom towards
which Marcel gravitates.

C. END GOAL
The existential life that Marcel paints as possible for humanity is largely one
of hope—but not one of optimism. Being in the world as body allows one to seek
out new opportunities for the self, and so Marcelian hope is deeply pragmatic in
that it refuses to compute all of the possibilities against oneself. But the picture is
not rosy. Hope for Marcel is not faith that things will go well, because most often,
things do not go well. The depravity of the problematic man threatens to
suffocate. Yet, even if there is despair in our situation, there is always movement
towards something more. This movement towards is the philosophical project for
Gabriel Marcel. If there is always movement, and always more to reach for, the
existential self is never complete (and indeed, this is why Marcel refused to
categorize his existential project as a “system” or “dialectic”). The mystery of being
for the existential self is unsolvable, because it is not a problem to be solved.
The notion of “hope” for Marcel relies upon a significant Marcelian
distinction between problem and mystery. For the problematic man each aspect
of life is reduced to the level of a problem, so that the self and all of its relationships,
goals, and desires are treated as obstacles to be conquered. Life is, for the
problematic man, a series of opportunities to possess, and the body is alienated
from the problematic man’s own corporeality. Not only is such a person separated
from his own being as a result, he is distanced from the true mystery of being. If I
am my body, and I want to inquire into being, I must grasp that being is a
philosophical mystery to be engaged with rather than a problem to be solved. The
existential self, upon recognizing that the self is not something that is possessed,
can then shift his thought from questioning the significance of his own existence
as a matter of fact, to questioning how he is related to his body. The vital cannot
 be separated from the spiritual, since the spiritual is conditioned on the body, which
can then provide for opportunities and so, for hope.
The mystery of being, then, is a tale to be told, analyzed, probed, and
worked toward. To be sure, even as experiences change, society evolves, and
relations emerge, the individual who seeks meaning through an investigation of
their being will never be fully satisfied. If Marcel’s ontology is viable, and the self
can question who it is that asks Who am I? then the self will find the answer to be
constantly in flux.

IV. PERSONAL CRITIQUE

Primary reflection is the source or may not ultimately the source but the giver of
more manifestation of the brokenness of the world. Hence, I may say that primary
reflection is like Hegel’s Understanding that sees not the whole but sees particulars or
parts. This is also manifest in Science which tends to compartmentalize everything,
analyze and break everything into understandable parts. So in the social reality, I see
people not as a person but someone associated with predicates. Like for example, I see
Kathyn as a “beautiful SHS student” but the predicate is not her whole being but a part of
who she is. That then I might be affectionate to her because of the predicate but not the
“thou” or the wholeness of her being. That makes her a broken world, but in secondary
reflection I boil down all her possible predicates into one word which is her name which
engrosses her whole being. Secondary reflection makes me see not anymore the
beautiful, cute and etc. but herself, the totality of her as a person. Then the I-Thou
relationship that I treat her as myself, not as a possession to have, but someone with
dignity (dignity sounds so mysterious but that is the point). It is like an encounter with the
holy, treating her not as a separate entity but a person within me, that I can relate to with
all due respect.

So much for that far from reality example, but both reflections are of great
importance that one leads to analysis then the other leads to mystery. That I may say
primary reflection though makes the world more broken , but it also helps us to see the
world clearly and I may say scientifically, but it is in this mystery, the awe of this mystery
that we do not know leads us to an encounter that is far from analysis, and this mystery
tends to give value to the facticity with the others as others not as possessions.

V. CONCLUDING REMARKS
There’s a lot for the relations between reflection and life; we would reach similar
conclusions about the relations between reflection and experience, and this connects with
what has been previously said. If I take experience as merely a sort of acquiescent
recording of impressions, I shall never manage to understand how the reflective process
could be integrated with experience. On the other hand, the more we control the notion
of experience in its proper complexity, in its active and I would even dare to say in its
dialectical aspects, the better we shall understand how experience cannot fail to transform
itself into reflection, and we shall even have the right to say that the more richly it is
experience, the more, also, it is reflection. But we must, at this point, take one step more
and grasp the fact that reflection itself can manifest itself at various levels; there is primary
reflection, and there is also what I shall call secondary reflection; this secondary reflection
has, in fact, been very often at work during these early lectures, and I dare to hope that
as our task proceeds it will appear more and more clearly as the special high instrument
of philosophical research. Roughly, we can say that where primary reflection tends to
dissolve the unity of experience which is first put before it, the function of secondary
reflection is essentially recuperative; it reconquers that unity.

REFERENECES:
https://www.iep.utm.edu/marcel/
http://biography.yourdictionary.com/gabriel-marcel