Vision of Marcel

The vision of
gabriel marcel
Epistemology, Human Person,
the Transcendent
VIBS
Volume 193
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a volume in
Philosophy and Religion
PAR
Kenneth A. Bryson, Editor
The vision of
gabriel marcel
Epistemology, Human Person,
the Transcendent
Brendan Sweetman
Amsterdam - New York, NY 2008

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FOR DALLAS WILLARD
Philosophy and Religion
PAR
Kenneth A. Bryson
Editor
Editorial Board of PAR
Rod Nicholls (webmaster) Harriet E. Barber

Deane-Peter Baker Stephen Clark
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Other Titles in PAR
Rem B. Edwards. What Caused the Big Bang? 2001. VIBS 115
Deane-Peter Baker and Patrick Maxwell, Editors, Explorations

in Contemporary Continental Philosophy of Religion. 2003.
VIBS 143
Constantin V. Ponomareff and Kenneth A. Bryson. The Curve

of the Sacred. An Exploration of Human Spirituality. 2006.
VIBS 178
CONTENTS
Editorial Foreword by Kenneth A. Bryson xi
Foreword by Kathleen Rose Hanley xv
Acknowledgments xvii
List of Abbreviations xix
Introduction 1
ONE Marcel’s Critique of Cartesianism 7
TWO Human Being as a Being-in-a-Situation 23
THREE The Objectivity of Knowledge 39
FOUR Secondary Reflection, Ethics, and the Transcendent 53
FIVE Religious Experience, and the Affirmation of God 69
SIX A Marcelian Critique of the Problem of Skepticism 87
SEVEN Marcel and Traditional Philosophical Problems 103
EIGHT Non-Conceptual Knowledge: Marcel and Maritain 121
NINE From an Epistemological Point of View:

Buber and Marcel 135
Notes 153
Bibliography 167
About the Author 181
Index 183
EDITORIAL FOREWORD
Gabriel Marcel is one of those rare philosophers that should be receiving
more attention in continental and analytical philosophy. Brendan Sweetman’s
book goes a long way towards ensuring that Marcel’s thought will be
discussed more widely. His analysis of the relevance of Marcel’s work is
provocative and useful. The work is useful because Marcel is often delib-
erately unsystematic, or at least not always clear on pivotal epistemological
issues such as the nature of intentionality. The book focuses on the depths and
adequacy of situated experience as providing an acceptable ontological base
for conceptual analysis. The work is provocative because it rethinks the fund-
amental difference between continental and analytical philosophy as a mis-
understanding about the nature of knowledge. It moves philosophy beyond
skepticism and relativism while providing an opportunity to rethink the epist-
emological connections between Thomists (Maritain), and the existential
insights of Marcel (and Buber). The conceptual differences between these
thinkers seem to be less glaring when they are viewed in the light of “their
similar concern with the structure and development of modern society—
culturally, socially, and politically”(124).
The wonderful thing about Gabriel Marcel’s philosophy is that it offers a
fresh, salutary, way to frame the world; Gabriel Marcel’s existential revolt
against the consequences of Cartesian philosophy is far reaching. It promises
a much needed change of heart in the realm of human relationships. We can
use our common experiences of fidelity, faith, and hope to recast human
relationships in a new direction—one in which the common values we share
raise us above relativism. The relativism of place can engender misunder-
standing because technological developments shrink the planet. The age of
technology is generating successes and failures. If the earth cannot sustain
these developments, and if human development is worse off today than it was
fifty years ago, then something is wrong. My interpretation of Marcel is that
he brings our age the hope of experiencing the other (and nature) from the
point of view of ontological mystery. The technocratic mentality has changed
what it means to be together though it takes no pleasure in doing so. The
impersonal character of science has put our planet in peril and the change of
heart is involuntary. Marcel did not talk about human development versus
economic development but I’m sure that his work can be used to raise anew
the question concerning the meaning of life. Perhaps the promise to help
others in difficulty is a promise we can keep? Perhaps we can blend Marcel’s
philosophy of religion with the management of technological developments?
But I stray from Sweetman’s focus.
The problem with the technocratic mentality is not that it focuses on the
area of primary reflection, as it should, but the misleading pretence that
human relationships can be reduced to that order. Marcel’s work details how
xii THE VISION OF GABRIEL MARCEL
the realm of human experience, fidelity, and promise keeping expresses an

order of human interaction that provides an ontological foundation for the
conceptual. The term Marcel reserves for this experience is secondary ref-
lection or mystery. The intuition of this mystery and of the importance of
keeping the commitments we make to others, point toward the existence of an
absolute transcendent reality in the otherwise relativistic character of human
existence. The ability we have to resonate with the presence of mystery in
others is the link that joins us to God.
The focus on relationships provides the starting point of existential
philosophy. A case can be made for the fact that for Heidegger this starting
point is the environment or world of nature. Heidegger conducts his Dasein
analysis as a reflection on what it means to be in relationship with Being.
Marcel, and Buber, on the other hand, ground relationships in a philosophy of
intersubjectivity. Buber’s I-Thou and Marcel’s realm of mystery or secondary
reflection provide a rich ontological repository for conceptual analysis. The
concept or idea is formed by abstraction from the subject’s experiences of
being-in-a-situation-with-others-in-a-situation. The question raised by realists,
of course, is how does a subjective experience move us beyond relativism or
provide a legitimate defense of the claim that knowledge is objective?
Sweetman’s book introduces us to many provocative aspects of Marcel’s
philosophy, including some we wish Marcel had made more explicit. The
book addresses fundamental issues like skepticism and relativism. These are
especially relevant in our day because they serve to bridge the divide between
continental and analytical philosophy. Indeed they serve to bridge the gap that
often exists among existentialists themselves. Sweetman argues that the divis-
ion can be overcome because it is based on a pseudo problem—the admiss-
ibility of Descartes’s skepticism. Once we recognize the insufficiency of that
starting point we can move on to the examination of more pressing issues. Of
special significance is Sweetman’s chapter on Marcel and Maritain since it
provides a useful dialogue between Marcel and Thomists through a discussion
of their similarities and differences. While Marcel did not write on the
intentionality of consciousness—and one could wish he had done so—the
similarities between Thomistic philosophy, and Marcel’s existentialism, are
closer than we first imagined them to be. I especially enjoyed the chapter on
Marcel and Buber because this is where Sweetman draws the line in the sand
between situated existence (Marcel’s secondary reflection, Buber’s I-Thou
relationship) and primary reflection (Buber’s I-It relationship). The lived exp-
erience provides the ontological foundation of knowledge because it captures
the subject in the primordial act of life (the pre-reflective). The process of
forming concepts arises as an abstraction from this experience. The meaning
of terms such as love, fidelity, availability, faith, and hope is experienced in
everyday life. That level is primary. What the philosopher captures in forming
concepts about that experience is the idea of love and fidelity, not the real
xiii
Editorial Foreword
experience but an abstraction of what it must be like to be in love and to be
faithful. I am not suggesting that philosophers are unloving or unfaithful (at
least not all of them), but that the mental construct always arises in the light of
the lived experience.
One of the questions I bring to the table when I think about the
suitability of using lived experience as a primary datum in philosophy is the
problem of religious fanaticism. This is an important issue in the philosophy
of religion. We have seen and continue to see the fanaticism that can arise out
of some of the modalities of entering into personal relationships with God.
(The nature of the exilic, mimetic, and covenantal agreements with God
presented in the Abraham religions and Old Testament literature is frequently
far from holy). I wondered how the conceptual level could be used to falsify a
belief in religious fanaticism, that is, how the fanatic’s conceptual elaboration
of his or her religious experience could be shown to be in error as a lived
experience. A lot depends on the nature of a spiritual or religious experience.
This seems to be a problem that Buber leaves himself open to. Marcel, on the
other hand, meets it through an appeal to the objectivity of knowledge as a
check on any experiences one has, including esoteric ones. In this way,
Marcel handles this problem the way most other epistemological approaches
would through an appeal to common experiences, such as fidelity. The fact
that the experience of fidelity is shared by many is proof of its reasonableness.
(At the other end of the spectrum, the fact that the beliefs expressed by the
Heaven’s Gate disciples were not shared by many gives us cause to question
their legitimacy.)
I am delighted to welcome Brendan Sweetman’s book to the PAR series
of VIBS books. His critical analyses of problems such as skepticism, and
relativism, and of the ontological character of personal experience, provide a
sound basis for the objective character of human values. It offers hope that the
experiences of fidelity, trust, faith, and hope we share with others can be
viewed as absolute when they are seen as authentic experiences of the many.
The centrality of human dignity raises human relationships beyond the
artificial divide between continental and analytical philosophy.
Kenneth A. Bryson, Ph.D.

Editor, PAR special series
Value Inquiry Book Series
FOREWORD
This book is a “must read” for persons seriously interested in modern philosophy
and its influence on various trends in postmodern and contemporary philosophy.
In clear and graceful prose, the author has given us a richly enlightening and thor-
oughly accurate exposition of perspectives and major themes from Gabriel
Marcel’s thought, clarifying his perspectives and insights about the nature of hum-
an knowledge, the human person, and Transcendence.
These three themes, central to Marcel’s philosophic investigations, and his
reflective clarification of them, can reveal and allow for critical verification of the
nature of human existence and the scope of human experiential knowledge,
including conscious encounters with the Transcendent.
Brendan Sweetman has succeeded admirably in achieving this goal. Still his
express purpose in examining these three dimensions of human experience is to
initiate an informed consideration of how Gabriel Marcel’s philosophical clar-
ification of the nature of human knowledge, the human person and the Trans-
cendent, can invite, even enable, philosophers to move beyond the distinct limit-
ations that have been Descartes’s legacy to modern and postmodern philosophy.
To accomplish this goal, Professor Sweetman has, in a very clear and fair-
minded way, presented Descartes’s theory of knowledge, highlighting its abstract
and purely conceptual nature. Descartes insistently affirms that human knowledge
has as its object the intelligible nature of something, and that this intelligibility is
grasped as an abstract universal concept accessible to all minds, thus providing,
Descartes believed, for the reliability and universality of all knowledge.
Emphasizing the purely abstract, conceptual nature of knowledge, and its
universality, Descartes’s epistemology is in accord with the scientific approaches
of his time, and also the development of rationalistic and analytic approaches in
philosophy. However this philosophic approach of abstract rationalism gives rise
to the problem of skepticism, and other problems that follow from such an
abstract disincarnate theory of knowledge.
In turn then, Professor Sweetman contrasts Gabriel Marcel’s description of
the nature of the human person as knower, and the human process of knowing,
which do not have the unnecessary limitations that followed from Descartes’s
epistemology. Sweetman also shows how Marcel’s clarification of the nature of
the human person, and the process of human knowing provide the basis and allow
for greater scope and reliability in human knowing.
Unlike Descartes’s view, Marcel’s notion of human knowledge does not
derive from an abstract “cogito” and develop through abstract reasoning; rather it
evolves through reflective clarification of individual persons’ incarnate encoun-
ters. Marcel first recognizes that the knower is an embodied subjectivity, in a
“living situation.” On this basis, and from this perspective, we can focus on var-
ious particular aspects of a given reality or situation, taking note of, critically
verifying, and reflectively clarifying one’s descriptive interpretation of them.
xvi THE VISION OF GABRIEL MARCEL
With artful descriptions, and incisive critiques, Sweetman justifies the

conditions of validity for phenomenological analyses and interpretations. He also
dialogues with and offers fair-minded critique of others engaging in phenomen-
ological investigation and interpretation. He reaches out even to include chapters
of dialogue with Jacques Maritain and Martin Buber. Sweetman’s erudition and
familiarity with authors and critical literature pertaining to phenomenological
analyses provide extensive and trustworthy information.
Without further commentary or delay, we encourage the reader to move on
and enjoy Brendan Sweetman’s admirably clear and richly informative expos-
ition of Marcel’s contributions to ongoing dialogue and research clarifying themes
in epistemology, the human person and the Transcendent.
Katharine Rose Hanley

Emeritus Professor of Philosophy
Le Moyne College
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A number of people offered valuable assistance as I worked on this book. I
would like most especially to thank the editor of the Value Inquiry Book
Series, Dr Kenneth Bryson, for his excellent and prompt advice, and also for
his general support of the project. Professor Bryson made the editorial process
much smoother than it might have been!
Some of the material in several of the chapters first appeared in earlier
sources, and is revised here as I attempt to bring out the significance of separ-
ate Marcelian themes for the larger questions of epistemology, and the nature
of the human person. I am grateful to Kluwer Academic Publishers, Inter-
national Philosophical Quarterly, Journal of the American Society for the
Study of French Philosophy, Renascence, and American Catholic Philosoph-
ical Quarterly for permission to reprint material.
Many people over the years helped me think through the ideas expressed
in this book. In particular, I would like to acknowledge my friends at the Gab-
riel Marcel Society: Teresa Reed, Thomas Michaud, Thomas Anderson, Tim
Weldon, Patrick L. Bourgeois, Fr Thomas Flynn, Clyde Pax, Robert O’Brien,
and Astrid O’Brien. I would also like to remember the late Bernard Gendreau,
who, among other things, first introduced me to the Gabriel Marcel Society,
and also the late Fr Robert Lechner. A special word of gratitude to K.R.
Hanley, probably the foremost Marcel scholar in the world, who was kind
enough to write the Foreword to the book, for which I am very grateful. I also
wish to thank Jude Dougherty, Doug Geivett, Edward Furton, Curtis L.
Hancock, and Peter Redpath for their support of my work on Marcel.
I owe a special debt of gratitude to Dallas Willard, with whom I first
started to study Marcel’s work in detail. Dallas’s general approach to philos-
ophy influenced my own approach to several of the questions Marcel was
interested in, and introduced me to the larger debate regarding issues in epis-
temology, and the human person. I am extremely grateful to Dallas for these
and many other insights.
Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Margaret, and my three children,
Brendan, John and Ciaran, for their unfailing support of my work.
Brendan Sweetman
President, Gabriel Marcel Society
Kansas City, January 2008
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
The following abbreviations for the titles of Marcel’s major works are used in
the Notes at the end of the book. Full bibliographical details may be found
there, and in the Bibliography.
MBI — The Mystery of Being, Vol. I
MBII — The Mystery of Being, Vol. II
CF — Creative Fidelity
BH — Being and Having
HV — Homo Viator
EO — “Existence and Objectivity”
TWB — Tragic Wisdom and Beyond
PE — The Philosophy of Existentialism
EBHD — The Existential Background of

Human Dignity
MJ — Metaphysical Journal
MMS — Man Against Mass Society

INTRODUCTION
This book has as one of its key themes Gabriel Marcel's (1889–1973) unique,
existentialist view of the human person, which not only serves as a pen-
etrating critique of traditional Cartesian epistemology, but also has significant
implications for our positive approach to human knowledge, and for our
conception of various philosophical problems after Descartes (1596–1650). I
will try to show that Marcel's account offers us a new understanding of the
self, radically different from, and opposed to, the Cartesian view. This latter
point is significant because many of the major philosophical problems of
traditional philosophy, like, for example, the problem of skepticism, are
ultimately motivated by, and have their origins in, the Cartesian view of the
self. Marcel's critique of Cartesianism is also important because Descartes's
conception of the self still has a dominant influence on much of contemporary
Anglo-American philosophy, setting the agenda for many of the problems
contemporary philosophers are interested in, and also defining the way they
should approach these problems.
I believe that Marcel's view of the human subject is unique in exis-
tentialist thought. It differs in fundamental ways from the work of the other
major existentialist figures and represents, I think, the most plausible account
of the existentialist view of the human subject. By “existentialist,” and
“existentialist thought,” we are referring in this book to that approach to phil-
osophy which begins with concrete human experience, and which gives
concrete human experience an ontological priority when doing philosophy
over a purely reflective approach that emphasizes abstract logical arguments
and conceptual analysis of philosophical questions, usually divorced from the
concrete lived experience of the human person. Marcel repudiated the terms
“existentialist” and “existentialism” as descriptions of his thought mainly be-
cause these terms had a rather negative connotation during the 1940's because
of their association (through Jean–Paul Sartre {1905–1980}) with an atheistic,
pessimistic worldview, and because he didn't think philosophy could ever be-
come an “ism” without betraying itself. So while mindful of these points, it is
nevertheless appropriate to see Marcel as broadly belonging to the exist-
entialist tradition; further, he is obviously an existentialist in the limited sense
in which we are using the term in this book.
I must also emphasize that my approach to Marcel's philosophy in this
book differs from usual studies of his work. My general approach is motiv-
ated and informed at least in part by the approach to similar problems and
concerns typical of philosophy in the English speaking world. I follow this
approach because a general aim of my work on Marcel is to show how his
understanding of the self has profound implications for traditional philos-
ophical problems, problems which still continue to generate much discussion
2 THE VISION OF GABRIEL MARCEL
in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. I will try to explicate in what

follows Marcel's views on not only ethics and the realm of the transcendent,
familiar themes in his thought, but also his views on epistemology, skept-
icism, the objectivity of knowledge, the nature of truth, and the problem of
internal and external relations.
Those readers familiar with Marcel's work will know that he is not a
systematic thinker and writer. Indeed, he is a suspicious of systematization in
philosophy because it is reminiscent of the search for a total philosophical
system, an approach that had been followed by a number of earlier thinkers,
but an approach that he believes is misguided. But because of his philos-
ophical style, a certain amount of excavation of his views is necessary as they
pertain to some of the subjects of this book (indeed, this is even sometimes
necessary with his more familiar themes). The way of reading Marcel which I
present in this volume is not developed in any detail in his thought, although I
believe it is quite explicitly stated in general outline. And although a certain
amount of reconstruction is necessary, as it is in the exposition of even
Marcel's better known themes, I think that there is sufficient evidence both
textually and thematically to claim with reasonable certainty that the views
which I present in this book were held by him. At the very least, I wish to
claim that the arguments which I develop in these pages are fully compatible
with Marcel's thought.
There is, therefore, in this book something of the spirit of dialogue and
debate between continental philosophy and post-Cartesian philosophy, which
I also take to include recent analytic philosophy. However, I acknowledge
that it is more debate than dialogue in the sense that I regard Marcel as offer-
ing an enlightening critique of Cartesian philosophy, and post-Cartesianism
and its problems, a critique which suggests to us a way beyond these
problems (for example, the problem of skepticism). If Marcel's critique is
successful, as I will argue it is, this would represent progress in the debate
concerning these problems.
In chapter 1, I illustrate Marcel's understanding of, and general critique
of, traditional Cartesian philosophy, and also introduce what I call Marcel's
“general argument” for the critique of modern philosophy. We will see that,
for Marcel, human knowledge first arises at the ontologically prior level of
being-in-a-situation, and the “objective knowledge” of Cartesianism, includ-
ing scientific knowledge, is founded on abstractions from this level of
being-in-a-situation and must be understood in terms of it, not vice versa. The
ontological priority of the realm of being-in-a-situation over the realm of
conceptual knowledge has philosophical implications of the first importance.
No philosopher that I know of has subjected this aspect of Marcel's thought to
a systematic, detailed analysis.
Chapter 2 provides an exposition of one of Marcel's central themes: that
the self, the human subject, is essentially an embodied being-in-a-situation.
Introduction 3
The chapter argues that Marcel's main point is that the particular ideas of
each individual human subject always involve a body and a world (that is, a
situation, or a context) which contribute fundamentally to, and are partly
constitutive of, their particular character. We examine why Marcel believes
the propositions advanced in the “general argument” are true, and do function
as an important critique of much of traditional Cartesian philosophy.
We will see that the uniqueness of Marcel's view is that he makes the
fact of human embodiment, and the subject's contextual situation in existence,
essential to the nature of the subject's particular ideas. Here Marcel differs
from Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) who does not provide any phenom-
enology of the body, and who even suggests that dasein could exist in
principle without a body. As a consequence of this emphasis on the nature of
human embodiment, Marcel is able to avoid, unlike Heidegger, the prob-
lematic conclusion that there is no mental content present at all at the onto-
logically basic level of being-in-a-situation. His view of the human subject
also allows him to avoid the conclusion, unlike both Heidegger and Sartre,
that human understanding is merely interpretative, for he rejects the view that
concepts (that is, abstractions) are primarily holistic. In short, he seems to be
one of the only philosophers who successfully attacks the atomism of
traditional philosophy in general, and of Cartesianism in particular, while at
the same time avoiding conceptual and moral relativism.
Chapter 3 suggests that Marcel's approach to epistemological issues can
help us with a problem that has plagued recent continental philosophy, that is,
with the problem of trying to ensure a significant role for the human subject in
philosophy without sacrificing the objectivity of knowledge. Although it is
appropriate to describe Marcel as a (Christian) existentialist philosopher, it is
also appropriate, in my view, to describe him as a realist who believes in the
objectivity of knowledge. Yet he is undoubtedly committed to the centrality
of human subjectivity when dealing with philosophical problems, and indeed
he is extremely sympathetic with the general shift of the movement of
existentialism away from the abstract systems of Cartesian philosophy to a
more concrete philosophy of the subject. This chapter tries to show how
Marcel's philosophy offers us a way to do justice to, and maintain the priority
of, human subjectivity and individuality without falling into the relativism and
skepticism which has tended to accompany such notions.
The next two chapters turn to Marcel's views of the ethical and the
transcendent. Chapter 4 further elaborates Marcel's intriguing account of the
human person by considering the key notions of secondary reflection and the
realm of mystery, and then developing the implications of these notions for
his approach to ethics, and the realm of the transcendent. The chapter
concludes by considering some points of contrast between his approach to
ethics and the analytic approach to ethics. In chapter 5, we move on to
examine Marcel's unique approach to the existence of God, and its impli-
cations for traditional philosophy of religion. After some preliminary remarks

about whether Marcel thinks God's existence would admit of a rational
argument, we explain his account of how the individual subject can arrive at
an affirmation of God through experiences of fidelity and promise-making.
We then consider how Marcel's own philosophical and phenomenological
approach could be regarded as a type of argument for the existence of God.
The chapter concludes by suggesting a way in which Marcel's approach offers
an advance upon the views of contemporary philosophers of religion in the
reformed tradition concerning the analysis of religious experience.
In chapter 6, I elaborate an argument that is present, but not developed
in any detail, in Marcel's thought (it is also present to a certain extent in
Heidegger)—the argument that the problem of skepticism in not a real prob-
lem. We draw upon Marcel's critique of Cartesianism, and of his alternative
view of the subject (discussed in earlier chapters), upon what we have called
his “new epistemology,” in an attempt to illustrate how his thoughts on the
nature of knowledge and being can function as an effective response to the
traditional problem of skepticism.
Chapter 7 examines some of the implications of Marcel's view of the
human subject as a being-in-a-situation for some other well-known philos-
ophical problems. The problems I will consider were important in traditional
metaphysics, but it is with the rise of analytic philosophy that they have
become especially prominent. The problems discussed in this chapter are the
problem of internal and external relations, the problem of necessary conn-
ections, and the problem of identity. I argue that in the light of Marcel's
account of the human subject our understanding of these problems will have
to be significantly reassessed. This task is important because if Marcel's
existentialist account of the human self is largely correct then it is obviously
imperative to examine the implications this will have for central philosophical
questions. As far as I know, no work of this kind has been done up to now.
It is quite fruitful, I think, to attempt to discover whether philosophical
work in one tradition in philosophy might throw new light upon some of the
problems which have engaged philosophers in other traditions. In this respect,
it is disappointing that the implications of the Marcelian approach for some of
the main problems of contemporary analytic philosophy have not been adeq-
uately explored. Indeed, there has been a notable, and I would say regrettable,
absence of dialogue between continental philosophy and analytic philosophy
in the twentieth century. Since I believe that the Marcelian existentialist
approach can throw new light on some of the philosophical problems that
concern contemporary analytic philosophy, it is imperative in my view that
dialogue between the two traditions be established. This study in general is
intended to be a small gesture in that direction.
Chapter 8 then extends our discussion of epistemological matters by
turning to a more detailed analysis of non-conceptual knowledge. In this
Introduction 5
chapter, we consider themes common to the work of Jacques Maritain (1882–

1973) and Marcel, especially relating to the nature and significance of
non-conceptual knowledge in their respective philosophies. This topic is the
most interesting point of agreement between the two philosophers, an
agreement neither of them was quite prepared to acknowledge in his own
lifetime. From our vantage point today, I suggest that the differences between
the two philosophers are not as significant as they themselves seemed to
regard them. Maritain and Marcel have many substantive points in common,
and both thinkers are on the same side in their philosophy of the human
person, in their epistemologies, and, of course, in their overall worldviews.
The last chapter continues the subject of epistemology, and considers a
number of key epistemological questions from the point of view of Martin
Buber (1878–1965) and Marcel. Buber's philosophy of “I-Thou” and “I-It”
relationships is regarded by many as a genuinely far-reaching breakthrough in
modern thought. It is also a very similar epistemology to that of Marcel's. The
aim of the chapter is to identify some of the key epistemological questions as
they might arise in the work of Buber and Marcel (and occasionally Heid-
egger as well). The “Copernican revolution” which Karl Heim (1874–1958)
has seen in Buber's epistemological approach is also present, I believe, in
Marcel, and it is a revolution that contains the seeds of a profound critique of
the general direction of Continental philosophy after Heidegger. The chapter
explores these topics by means of a discussion of various epistemological
questions, including the questions: do Buber and Marcel hold that human
knowledge represents the world as it really is in itself?; and how are we to
characterize our knowledge of the I-Thou relation itself (or, in Marcelian
language, our knowledge of the realm of mystery)?
In general, this book is a little different from other books on Marcel
because it does not attempt a systematic presentation of his work as a whole.
This is because my aim is to move his philosophy in a different direction to
focus on his intriguing existentialist view of the human person, and to illus-
trate the profound implications of this view not only for traditional themes in
his work (for example, concerning ethics and the transcendent), but also for
epistemological issues (for example, concerning questions about the object-
ivity of knowledge, the problem of skepticism, and the nature of non-
conceptual knowledge, among others). In this way, I hope that the volume
overall will make a small but distinctive contribution to the literature on
Marcel.
One
MARCEL’S CRITIQUE OF CARTESIANISM
It has proved difficult to categorize phenomenological and existentialist phil-

osophies, either in terms of a uniform approach to philosophical issues, or in
terms of a group of common themes. Yet one of the main concerns of Gabriel
Marcel's work—the nature of the human subject—is one theme which I think
most scholars would agree is common to much of phenomenological and exist-
entialist thought. Both movements are particularly concerned with the attempt to
uncover the fundamental nature of the human subject, or to use existentialist
terminology, the fundamental mode of being of the human subject. Many of those
philosophers whom we would immediately class as phenomenologist or
existentialist—Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), Martin Heidegger, Marcel, Karl
Jaspers (1883-1969), Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005), Maurice Merleau–Ponty (1908–
1961)—are concerned in one way or another with this issue, and usually in a way
which is central to their thought. In this chapter, my primary focus will be
Marcel's dissatisfaction with Cartesianism, especially the Cartesian conception of
the human subject, and the influence this conception had on the Cartesian
approach to epistemology. As we will see, the foundation of both Marcel's
criticism of Cartesianism, and of his alternative view (which will be the subject
of later chapters) is a phenomenological analysis of the human subject.
We will have three main objectives in developing Marcel's approach to
Cartesianism: (1) to briefly describe Marcel's conception of philosophy, and his
philosophical method; (2) to spell out Marcel's understanding, and general crit-
ique, of traditional Cartesian philosophy; and (3) to lay out, in the light of our
discussion in (2), what I shall call Marcel's “general argument” for the critique of
modern philosophy. (Later chapters will discuss, among other things, why he
believes the propositions advanced in the “general argument” are true, and do
function as an important critique of much of traditional Cartesian philosophy, and
its problems and concerns.)
1. Marcel's Understanding of Philosophy
It is important to appreciate at the outset both Marcel's philosophical method, and

his conception of philosophy, for both are central to the way in which he
approaches the various philosophical issues with which he is concerned. Turning
initially to his philosophical method, we can describe Marcel's method in phil-
osophy as phenomenological, but we must note that he himself never claimed to
be a phenomenologist, and that at least one expert on phenomenology, Herbert
Spiegelberg (1904–1990), regards Marcel as at best an ally, rather than a
protagonist, of phenomenology. 1 Certainly, Marcel has no grand phenomen-

ological project in mind as Husserl had, nor has he any elaborate statement of his
philosophical method, nor any clear statement concerning the aims of his
method. We should not be surprised at these points, however, for Marcel believes
that the search for elaborate systems in philosophy (like, for example, Husserl's
attempt to make philosophy a rigorous science) is a misguided endeavor. 2 He
also holds that one's method of proceeding in philosophy should be to some
extent non-systematic and non-objective. This approach will facilitate a more
accurate insight into the non-transparent nature of the human subject than
philosophy has achieved up to now, and an evocation of the non-objective,
non-transparent “nature” of the reality of the “objects” of ordinary experience.
The word “object” is intended to refer to not just physical objects, but to
any aspect of experience that can become a content for the mind. A newspaper, a
walk, feeling cold, and a conversation with a friend, are all possible “objects” of
experience in Marcel's sense. He observes: “I am…taking the word object…in its
strictly etymological sense…of something flung in my way, something placed
before me, facing me, in my path.” 3 In this sense of the concept, experience itself
cannot be an object. Marcel's approach therefore allows us to appreciate as our
work in philosophy unfolds that philosophers should not regard the scientific
approach to reality as the paradigm of knowledge.
I think it is fair and accurate to describe Marcel's philosophical method as
“phenomenological,” understood in a broad sense. Marcel's phenomenological
approach is developed and refined over the course of his work, and is more easily
identified as phenomenological the more one gets further into the body of his
thought. His philosophical method involves a combination of phenomenological
descriptions, emphasis on concrete examples taken from everyday life, rational
argument, and consideration of objections to his position. It is important to point
out that Marcel does argue his position. Yet like many of the existentialists, he
does not present his argument in a formal way precisely because he believes that
this is neither possible nor desirable for most of the important philosophical
problems, especially the problem of the nature of the human subject. As Gerald
Hanratty (1942–2003) has noted, “More than of most philosophers, it is true of
Gabriel Marcel that the form and content of his thought are inseparable.” 4 K.R.
Hanley (1933–) has observed that Marcel “expects readers to think right along
with him, to find and verify insights in relation to their own lives . . . he wishes to
encourage readers to recollect their own experiences and let them be the source
of their verifications and insights.” 5 Unlike many philosophers, he makes an
appeal to the direct experiences of his readers as part of the philosophical enter-
prise.
In addition to some arguments, and a consideration of some objections to
parts of his general viewpoint, he most frequently appeals to phenomenological
descriptions of human experiences in order to reveal the condition and situation
of the human subject in its world. In this way, Marcel proceeds in a very similar
Marcel’s Critique of Cartesianism 9
manner to other existentialist philosophers, most notably Søren Kierkegaard

(1813–1855). However, for a considerable part of his career, Marcel was not
aware of Kierkegaard's work. Indeed, as one philosopher has noted, he developed
almost single-handedly an independent phenomenology in France. 6 There is no
doubt that the overall orientation and development of Marcel's thought owes a
considerable debt to the phenomenological and existentialist traditions.
Although Marcel does not discuss his philosophical method in detail, he
does say many times throughout his work that his way of proceeding will be
phenomenological. 7 He adds that “by ‘phenomenological analysis’ I mean the
analysis of an implicit content of thought, as opposed to a psychological analysis
of ‘states.’” 8 So for him the phenomenological method does not overlap with
psychology (which involves an empirical or theoretical treatment of the self), and
does not involve psychological analyses of states of mind. For example, in his
phenomenological analysis of the meaning of the “objects” of experience for a
particular human subject, these “objects” are analyzed as contents of the cons-
cious mind, not as states of the mind. However, it is crucial to point out, and
obvious from the application of his method, that what Marcel means by “content
of thought” is not the objects of abstract thought, but the necessary connections
which constitute the meaning of a particular human subject's experiences in his
or her concrete embodied situation in existence. (Necessary connections refer to
those parts of our experience, including our conceptual knowledge, that must go
together in some way in order to understand the meanings present in knowledge
and experience. We will illustrate this notion in more detail later as our dis-
cussion unfolds.)
As we move on to discuss Marcel's conception of philosophy, we must first
point out that Marcel is making a philosophical point by adopting the particular
method of philosophizing which has come, in large measure, to characterize
existentialist philosophy. His method is unusual (especially when compared with
the method of analytic philosophy) because he is trying to open the reader up to
the possibility of discovering various truths about the nature of the human
subject, to give us an insight into various necessary connections that will reveal
the essence of what it means to be a human being in the world of ordinary
experience. He is not attempting to coerce the reader by force of logic alone into
acceptance of his position, the latter approach being typical of Cartesian and
recent analytic philosophy. Marcel believes that coercion by means of formal
argument is not possible for most of the crucial issues that are the special concern
of philosophy. This is because much of what is fundamental in human life
necessarily involves the personal experience of the subject. These truths cannot,
therefore, be detached from the subject's individual inquiry and presented as an
“objective” result or solution which anyone could then recognize and fully
understand without any personal involvement or participation on their part.
We can identify at least three important points that Marcel is making about
the nature of philosophy through the application of his particular philosophical
method. First, the main aim of philosophical inquiry is the attempt to discover the
most basic truths about the human condition. It will emerge from this inquiry
that human being is fundamentally an embodied being-in-a-situation, and,
further, that all other ways of understanding the human subject derive from this
ontologically basic understanding. This most basic nature of the self cannot be
fully captured by abstract argument, but must be sought out and revealed by
means of phenomenological descriptions of concrete situations from everyday
experience. The revelation of the realm of being-in-a-situation will therefore
require Marcel's “concrete philosophy.” He observes that: “no concrete phil-
osophy is possible without a constantly renewed yet creative tension between the
I and those depths of our being in and by which we are; nor without the most
stringent and rigorous reflection, directed on our most intensely lived exper-
ience.” 9 Second, true philosophical inquiry is a kind of vocation, springing from
the urgent inner need of a particular human subject and there is an irreducible
quality about the truth it seeks. 10 Third, the whole process of, and emphasis
upon, abstraction, characteristic of modern philosophy and science after René
Descartes (1596–1650), is misguided. For although abstract thinking has an
essential role to play in human life, it is not sufficient by itself to discover the
fundamental nature of human existence. In the twentieth century, the emphasis
on abstraction has, according to Marcel, only succeeded in reducing truth to a
technical activity. As he puts it,
Everything that can be properly called technique is comparable to a

kind of manipulation, if not always necessarily of physical objects, at
least of mental elements (mathematical symbols would be an example)
comparable in some respects to physical objects…and the validity for
anybody and everybody, which has been claimed for truth, is certainly
deeply implied…in the very notion of technique…. 11
However, this approach to truth only distorts philosophical truth for the more we
get beyond truth as a technical activity, the less “universal” it becomes. 12 This
critique of what Marcel sometimes calls the “spirit of abstraction” 13 is a very
important part of his thought, and has influenced both his approach to, and his
conception of, philosophy. We will continually note the importance of these three
points about the nature of philosophy throughout this book.
Marcel's method is phenomenological then only in the broad sense that he is
engaged in the attempt to describe concrete cases in order to reveal the general
structure of human existence. This structure, he suggests, is open to all who want
to see it, and it will yield profound insights for how we understand our existence.
Unlike most philosophical theories, it will not be presented in an abstract system
divorced from human life. For Marcel is not attempting to hypothesize about the
nature of existence, to offer yet another theory, or to observe mere “facts”
(understood in the abstract sense). It is for this reason that he draws our attention
to the point that if we reveal the mistaken assumptions concerning the nature of
the self and its intentional content, which were the guiding forces of
Cartesianism, our understanding of the human subject will be radically altered.
He wishes to attack the Cartesian view of the self as a mind gazing out upon the
external world, apprehending it by means of clear and distinct ideas. This view of
the self motivated Descartes's entire epistemological project, and the episte-
mological project of most of the tradition that followed. Marcel wishes to show
that this subject/object epistemology presupposes a more fundamental, and
ontologically prior level, of selfhood, from which it is derived, and only in terms
of which it can be understood. We must now elaborate this important claim.
2. Marcel's Conception and General Critique of Cartesianism
Marcel's existentialist critique of Cartesianism, especially the traditional epist-

emological problems with which Cartesianism is mainly concerned, is essentially
a critique of that account of the nature of the self upon which the traditional
epistemological enterprise is based. The Cartesian picture of the self conceives
the self as a discrete entity with a neatly defined “inside” and “outside,” such that
whatever is “inside” cannot also be “outside” and what is “outside” cannot also
be “inside.” That is to say, our ideas, which are “inside” can be fully understood
without reference to the world, which is “outside.” This conception of the self
has determined the agenda for philosophers working within this tradition ever
since Descartes. In general, existentialist philosophers have always emphasized
that the approach of modern philosophy to the important philosophical issues,
especially to the issue of the origin and nature of knowledge, is motivated in the
main by a view of the self. In fact, this is what they take to characterize modern
philosophy as “modern”—the view of the self, which motivates and defines its
particular concerns. 14 The Cartesian view of the self has, of course, also had a
considerable influence on much of contemporary philosophy, especially
Anglo-American philosophy, setting the agenda for many of the problems
contemporary philosophers are interested in, and also defining for them the way
they should approach these problems. 15 (We will come back to this point later.)
The task of the existentialists, including Marcel, is to illustrate that the
Cartesian view of the self is not ontologically basic for the human subject. That
is to say, the Cartesian view is not a presentation of how the self actually is. If
this is true, then the Cartesian view of the self should not be given primacy in
philosophy, and should not be employed to define philosophical problems
(particularly problems about how the self comes to gain knowledge about the
world). This dispute about the true nature of the self can be expressed by means
of the following question, according to Hubert Dreyfus (1929–): “What way of
being makes possible every type of encountering?” 16 The answer to this question
for Marcel, as for Heidegger, is that it is human being, which makes possible
every type of encountering. This encountering refers to how human beings
experience the world, and it is through these experiences that knowledge and
meaning arise. What is in dispute between the existentialists themselves, and
particularly between the existentialists and those motivated by the traditional
approach after Descartes, is how “human being” should be understood.
According to Marcel, the Cartesian approach to knowledge takes a definite
stand—without demonstration—on how “human being” is to be understood, even
though this stand is not always overtly expressed in accounts of the methodology
of Cartesianism. Cartesianism operates with certain assumptions about the nature
of the self. One of its crucial assumptions is about the way the self enters into
and gains knowledge. According to Marcel, Cartesianism implies “that we know
in advance . . . what the relation between the self and the truth it recognizes must
be.” 17 That is to say, knowledge arises, for the Cartesian, by means of a subject
“looking out” upon a world. The self looking out upon the world is conceived of
as a self which apprehends the world by means of what Descartes called clear
and distinct ideas, or, more generally, by means of consciousness and its
intentional content. Now the task of the epistemologist operating with this view
of the self is generally conceived to be threefold: to provide (1) a clear account of
how the mind arrives at its intentional content; (2) some theory proving that this
content does, in fact, represent reality as it really is; and (3) an examination of
our clear and distinct ideas in order to gain knowledge of reality. Descartes was
mainly concerned with (1) and (2), and we will follow him in this. 18
For Descartes, (1) and (2) really coincide, for he believed that reality, by
means of clear and distinct ideas, is “transparent” to thought. Another way we
might put this is to say that thought has “transparent access” to reality. That is to
say, clear and distinct ideas do, in fact, represent reality as it really is. All we
must be sure of is that we really have these ideas, that the processes by which we
obtained them are reliable, and that there are no other reasonable grounds to
doubt them. So, for Descartes, this conception of the self as a subject looking out
upon a world determines the nature of the central problem of epistemology: how
do I know that my clear and distinct ideas are true? 19 When Descartes has
established (2) by means of the cogito, and the ontological argument, etc., he
then believes the way is open to obtain knowledge of the world according to the
project laid out in (3). 20
The self, according to the Cartesian view, regards itself as a self con-
templating a world of objects. The self is regarded as “inside” (“subjective”
experience), and the objects are “outside” in the “objective” world. Hubert
Dreyfus has put this point well in his discussion of Heidegger's position:
The whole array of philosophical distinctions between inner subjective

experience and the outer object of experience, between perceiving and
the perceived, and between appearance and reality arise at this point,
and it becomes the evident point of departure for problems of episte-
mology. 21
Marcel is suggesting that this Cartesian view of the self is mistaken. For this is
not how the self primarily encounters the world at all, and is not how the self
gains knowledge of the world. According to Marcel, “Cartesianism implies a
severance . . . between intellect and life; its result is a depreciation of the one,
and an exaltation of the other, both arbitrary.” 22 Our first contact with the world,
according to Marcel, is just that—contact, without any mediation from clear and
distinct ideas (that is, abstractions), or clear representations. Rather, our fund-
amental situation in the world will define our “ideas,” for Marcel, and any
analysis or description of them must involve a reference to a human body and its
place or “situation” in existence. This is what Descartes overlooked.
This account of Descartes's view of the self is supported by S.V. Keeling
(1894–1979), who has pointed out that, according to Descartes, we never
Perceive the natural world or bodies that people it; we perceive only
that which represents, and indeed mainly misrepresents in sensory
media, that world and its bodies. Knowing being a function of the self's
intrinsic nature, is logically independent of the knower's body and its
activities. By pure thought alone do we acquire knowledge of the nature
and existence of a physical world and by pure thought too do we come
to know its nature and existence to be independent of our minds. 23
It is this kind of Cartesian approach to how knowledge arises that Marcel wishes
to resist. He claims that Descartes has not attempted to describe his ideas at all.
Rather, Descartes is operating with certain assumptions about how the mind
knows the world. The task of the phenomenologist is to describe things as they
are, and consequently expose the assumptions behind theories, which tell us how
things “must” be.
Descartes holds a “container” view of the mind. According to this view, the
mind is full of ideas of all kinds, which are essentially shut off from the world,
and his task is to show that these ideas (at least those that are “clear and distinct”)
do actually reflect the way things really are. This sets up for him the problem of
knowledge (which ended up being the problem of skepticism). The philosopher
aims for clear and distinct ideas for it is by means of these ideas that true
knowledge of reality is to be attained. Descartes's most complete statement about
clear and distinct ideas occurs in the Principles of Philosophy:
The knowledge upon which a certain and incontrovertible judgment can

be formed, should not alone be clear but also distinct. I term that clear
which is present and apparent to an attentive mind, in the same way as
we assert that we see objects clearly when, being present to the regard-
ing eye, they operate upon it with sufficient strength. But the distinct is
that which is so precise and different from all other objects that it con-
tains within itself nothing but what is clear. When, for instance, a severe
pain is felt, the perception of this pain may be very clear, and yet for all
that not distinct, because it is usually confused by the sufferers with the
obscure judgment that they form upon its nature, assuming as they do
that something exists in the part affected, similar to the sensation of pain
of which they are alone clearly conscious. 24
It is obvious from this passage that Descartes does not provide a very clear
definition of clear and distinct! Distinctness is defined partly in terms of clarity,
and both notions are defined by comparisons, which still leaves his position ra-
ther vague. It seems that there can be clear but indistinct perceptions, but no
distinct perception that is unclear. 25 However, although Descartes has no clear
exposition or account of what he means by “idea,” as Anthony Kenny (1931–)
has pointed out, 26 and does not do a very good job of carefully and consistently
distinguishing between the different kinds of ideas, we can discern that he thinks
ideas can be either unclear, or clear but indistinct, or clear and distinct. 27 It is
only the latter type that can give us true knowledge. It will turn out that clarity is
linked closely with “objectivity,” in a way which we will explain in a moment.
Descartes's famous analysis of the piece of wax in Meditation II is very
revealing of his assumptions. 28 It is by means of clear and distinct ideas of the
objects of our experience that we gain knowledge of these objects, as long as we
have removed all doubt that these ideas do actually match up with the objects. In
the case of the wax, we have a clear and distinct idea by means of which we gain
ordinary, everyday knowledge of the wax. This idea has parts—both primary
qualities (extension, shape, magnitude, etc.) and secondary qualities (taste, smell,
sound, color, etc.). However, Descartes believes that we must go further and ask
about the true or real nature of the wax itself. He proceeds to examine the wax
through many changes in order to discover its real nature. The wax can be
radically altered so that we cannot perceive it to be the same piece of wax (al-
though we think we do perceive it to be the same). Yet we do know that it is the
same piece of wax. But it cannot be the secondary qualities which make us
conclude that it is the same piece of wax, for, in Descartes's example, he has
melted the wax to liquid, so that the secondary qualities are completely changed.
So what is it that leads us to conclude that it is the same piece of wax? He
concludes that it is by means of our faculty of judgment that we know it is the
same piece of wax throughout. The only properties, therefore, that belong to the
wax throughout the whole history of its alterations by means of which we can
judge it to be the same piece of wax are its extension, figure, quantity or mag-
nitude, place and time, etc. 29 These are all, therefore, that we see clearly and
distinctly to belong essentially and permanently to the material body of the wax.
This analysis means that for Descartes we have (1) clear and distinct ideas of
everyday material objects (for example, of the wax), and (2) clear and distinct
ideas of the true nature of material objects (for example, of the true nature of the
wax).
Our task then, for Descartes, in our analysis of the true nature of the
material world, is to replace our confused ideas acquired through sense exp-
erience (which we accept in daily life, and which do represent the objects as they
appear to us) as marks of the “materiality” of objects, by a set of clear and
distinct ideas acquired through mathematical study. The key point of this con-
clusion is that it is only the so-called primary qualities that belong truly to objects
independently of being perceived. The secondary qualities are supplied by the
mind. Descartes's sole argument for this conclusion is that it is only by means of
the primary qualities that we can judge an object to be the same through many
changes.
Whatever Descartes perceives as clear and distinct in his idea of “material
body” is real, and whatever he does not perceive as clear and distinct in this idea
is not real. We must ask, however, why Descartes advances this particular
argument? For, after all, in his idea of the wax he sees the secondary qualities
just as clearly and distinctly as the primary qualities. The secondary qualities are
“present and apparent to the attentive mind” no less that the primary qualities are.
His analysis of the clear and distinct idea of material body was influenced, as we
have seen, by his belief that only that which makes an object the same object
over time belongs to its real nature. One reason he adopts this criterion is his
commitment to the view that clear and distinct ideas must give us “objective”
knowledge. “Objective” in this case does not simply mean true and absolute
independent of our beliefs, but also knowledge which can be universally
demonstrated to all. He assumes that all “objective” knowledge will have to be
universally demonstrable knowledge, or else it will not be truly objective. Hence,
his conclusion that only the primary qualities really belong to material bodies.
Another important reason, which leads him to adopt his view of primary and
secondary qualities, is the influence of the scientific approach on his thought.
Descartes wants his philosophical results to accord with the results of science
(just as John Locke {1672–1704} later did). This is because he thinks that the
scientific view of knowledge is the paradigm of knowledge. So, in an important
sense, the scientific view of knowledge sits in judgment on the philosophical
approach to knowledge, rather than vice versa.
Now these considerations concerning the faculty of judgment also lead
Descartes to conclude that thinking is the essence of the human being, and that
the mind and the body are therefore easily separable. In order to know the human
mind, and its operations, it is not necessary to even know that I have a body.
This, after all, is the predicament Descartes's methodic doubt places him in, and
why he must rely purely on the cogito to try to establish the validity of human
knowledge, and very important, it is also the reason he runs into the problem of
the Cartesian circle, thereby precipitating what Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)
called the “scandal of philosophy,” the problem of skepticism. For Descartes, the
mind is simply encased in a body apprehending the world through clear and
distinct ideas. The thinking self is not essentially related to a body and a world,
and so it is possible to divorce our mental states, our concepts and beliefs, from
the existence of everything else, including our own bodies. As Marcel puts it,
“The subject of the cogito is the epistemological subject.” 30
This view of Descartes's assumptions and motivations is well established in
philosophy, is not very controversial, and is borne out clearly by appeal to his
work, as we have seen above. It is clear even from the very beginning of the
Meditations that Descartes conceives of any proper inquiry as detached from the
context of the inquirer, and he is careful to ensure that he delivers his “mind from
every care” 31 of ordinary experience. When we consider his examination of his
ideas we should note two important points. First, he is not well disposed toward
an examination of his ideas and beliefs individually, because he believes that
they are all based on some foundation and “the destruction of the foundations of
necessity brings with it the downfall of the rest of the edifice.” 32 This attitude
indicates that Descartes regards the self as looking out upon a world, hoping to
form clear and distinct representations according to certain principles, for
example, that sense perception yields clear and distinct ideas, etc. Therefore, we
should not worry so much about the beliefs we have, but about the principle upon
which the beliefs are based. Second, when Descartes does examine some of his
ideas, the descriptions he provides are very vague, giving no details, and are
obviously influenced, not by any problem encountered in trying to describe ideas,
but by the assumptions he has already made about the origin and nature of our
ideas.
Descartes offers a clear indication of his assumption about the nature of the
self and its intentional content when he says in Meditation II that the images of
corporeal things “are framed by thought, which are tested by the senses . . . .” 33
This is another indication that he regards the self as a mind gazing upon a world,
that is, as a spectator of the world. 34 The assumption in his work is that if I have
an idea of a house, the idea is an isolated substance which does not imply a body
and a world. He presupposes that we can describe the properties of this substance
in such a way that they do not involve other things, such as our other ideas, as
well as the body and situation of the subject who has the idea. Descartes's
assumption here is one which was common in modern philosophy: that whatever
is distinct must therefore be separable. 35 Therefore, it is possible to doubt
whether our ideas do actually correspond to reality. This, according to Marcel, is
his mistake, for our ideas, as we shall see, are defined in part by their relation
both to other objects of our experience, and to our embodied concrete situation in
existence. And although concepts (abstract ideas) may have a certain
distinctness, they are not essentially separable from the “situated involvement” of
the individual subject who has the concepts. They are, in fact, internally related
to the context of the subject who has the concept. (We will elaborate exactly how
this is to be understood in Chapter 2, when we turn to a detailed analysis of
Marcel's positive account of the human subject.)
Descartes, in his analysis of the wax in Meditation II, ignores the context in
which the wax is embedded in his concrete situation in existence, and operates
with an assumption about how the wax “must” be appearing to him. He assumes,
first, that his (abstract) clear and distinct idea of the wax accurately represents his
experience of the wax, and, second, he also assumes that when we want to get to
the true nature of the wax, we must even ignore some of those qualities which
actually appear in our idea of the wax (namely, secondary qualities). What he
should do, according to Marcel, is try to describe his particular idea of the wax.
He should try to discover how the wax enters into his own particular experience
as an embodied being-in-a-situation. It is his failure to do this that has led him to
misdescribe the true nature of our ideas. Here is how Marcel puts it in his
Metaphysical Journal:
The reality that the cogito reveals—though without discovering an

analytical basis for it—is of quite a different order from the existence
that we are trying here not so much to establish as to identify in the
sense of taking note of its absolute metaphysical priority. The cogito
introduces us into a whole system of affirmations and guarantees their
validity. It guards the threshold of the valid . . . but it certainly does not
follow from this that the objective world to which access is opened up
to us by the cogito coincides with the world of existence . . . it is
important to be very clear in our minds that the existent can in no way
be treated as an unknowable object. 36
Descartes has set up his system, and then within his system, he proceeds to
describe and classify objects. But, on close examination, we can see that he
offers virtually no descriptions of his idea of the wax, for instance. This is
because he already has assumed that ideas are little substances, more or less
representing the world as it really is, and which can be understood without
reference to the world. Marcel's claim is that if we examine our ideas carefully
we will discover, first, that they involve a body and a world, and, second, that so
called “clear and distinct ideas” are simply abstractions from a more fundamental
level of “situated involvement” in which the “objects” of our experience have
very different meanings for the individual than the meaning presented in the
mind in “clear and distinct” ideas. The superficial, and in most cases complete
lack of, description of ideas in the Meditations makes it seem quite plausible that
Marcel and the existentialist movement in general have a point in their criticism
of Descartes.
It is important to emphasize that Marcel does not hold a holistic view of
concepts; that is to say, he does not hold that the meaning of a concept depends
almost entirely on its relations to other concepts in a linguistic system. He
believes that there are necessary representational similarities involved in a
concept and the object to which it corresponds. This is because concepts are
formed essentially by the mind conforming to the object, and by the object
dictating to the mind the manner in which it shall be known (at the level of
conceptual knowledge). In this way, objects at the level of conceptual knowledge
(the level of “primary reflection,” for Marcel) have a fairly constant identity over
history. Marcel has no wish to deny this basic realist analysis of the relationship
between a concept and its object. His crucial point is that at the level of “situated
involvement” the “identity” or “nature” of an object is not mediated through
concepts at all (that is, abstractions) but will depend upon the embodied
contextual situation of each particular human subject.
Therefore, his claim is not simply that the mind does not, as we have all
thought, grasp reality immediately in clear and distinct ideas, but that this
grasping takes place over a period of time. Rather, his point is that the self does
not naturally experience the world and does not come to know the world in this
way at all. We do not experience the world by forming clear and distinct ideas of
objects which can then be understood without reference to the world. At the level
of “situated involvement” we do have images and pictures in our mind, according
to Marcel, but at this level of involvement they are not disinterested, but are
intimately defined by the embodiment and particular situation of the individual
existential subject. Also, they do not come between the subject and the world, as
Descartes's clear and distinct ideas do. 37 The existential subject experiences the
world conceptually (that is, clearly and distinctly) only at a level of abstraction,
which by its very nature is derivative, and which does not take the “situated
involvement” of the existential subject into account.
As I have already indicated, Marcel believes that at the level of “situated
involvement,” we do have images and pictures in our mind. Here he is in fund-
amental disagreement with Heidegger. Heidegger appears to have held the view
that at the level of what he called being-in-the-world, and what one of his main
interpreters, Hubert Dreyfus, calls “absorbed coping,” mental content is not
required for dasein to cope with the world. According to Dreyfus, Heidegger
introduces “a new kind of intentionality (absorbed coping) which is not that of a
mind with content directed toward objects.” 38 Dreyfus identifies mental content
with self-referential mental content. One of the advantages of eliminating mental
content at the level of absorbed coping is that it leads readily to a dismissal of the
traditional problem of skepticism. As Dreyfus puts it:
The problem of the external world arises for those from Descartes to
Husserl and Searle who believe that all our activity is mediated by
internal representations, for then we can ask if our intentional contents
correspond to reality . . . . But if, in everyday Daseining, coping takes
place without intentional content, the question of the satisfaction of
intentional states cannot be raised. 39
Coping practices do not represent, and so cannot misrepresent.

Marcel rejects this position, and in my view this is one of the major ad-
vantages of his view over Heidegger's. Marcel believes that at the level of
being-in-a-situation, mental content is required to “cope” with the world. How-
ever, Marcel will still attempt to reject the traditional problem of skepticism (as
we will see in detail in Chapter 6). He does this by developing an account of the
embodiment of the subject which places that subject in contact with the world,
and which defines a different sort of mental content than Descartes's “clear and
distinct” ideas which can be understood without reference to the world. It is
interesting to note that Heidegger has no phenomenology of the body at all, and
Dreyfus even suggests that Heidegger did not think that having a body belongs
essentially to Dasein's essential structure. 40
The Cartesian approach to knowledge might be called taking the “reflective
standpoint.” It is reflective because it occurs by abstracting in reflection from the
personal involvement of the subject. In the reflective standpoint, intentionality
necessarily involves sharable mental content. This is why Marcel calls this
traditional view of the self the “universal” ego, because all personal involvement
is removed in the act of abstraction, so that all we are left with is isolated,
sharable, and therefore disinterested concepts. It is precisely the sharable content
of our conscious acts that concerns Cartesianism because this content is available
for all to consider. Marcel expresses this point in this way: “Inasmuch as I think,
I am a universal, and if knowledge is dependent on the cogito, that is precisely in
virtue of the universality inherent in the thinking ego.” 41
Motivated by this understanding of the self, and coupled with a commit-
ment to the scientific method, it is clear that one of the key notions in Descartes's
understanding of how the mind knows the world is “transparency.” 42 Descartes
sees perfected thought as transparent. This means that thought illumes reality
(presented in the content of thought) and has a direct access to reality. Therefore,
we must strip our own particular thoughts of their individuality so that they
become sharable and disinterested. Then we can be “objective.” This approach
presents the task of gaining objective knowledge about ourselves and the world
as basically a very straightforward one. Descartes himself certainly thought that
he had solved most of our philosophical problems about knowledge, except
perhaps problems concerning the mind/body nexus.
Philosophers ever since have been consequently attracted to the Cartesian
starting point. According to Marcel, “the seductiveness of the cogito for
philosophers lies precisely in its apparent transparency.” 43 As Dreyfus has noted,
the legacy of Cartesianism for contemporary epistemology is the underlying
assumption that in order for us to perceive, act and relate to objects there must be
some content in our minds—some internal representation—that enables us to
direct our minds toward each object. 44 Modern epistemologists across the whole
spectrum have been influenced by this way of thinking about the knowing
subject and its relation to the objects of knowledge, even as they have differed
with Descartes over the correct account of how human knowledge occurs, and
even as they have differed (often sharply) among themselves over possible
alternative accounts. Many have also fallen under the sway of the epist-
emological skepticism that is often the upshot of the Cartesian approach, and
many have also supported a form of scientific reductionism about knowledge as a
possible way out of the impasses of skepticism and anti-realism that have
recently bedeviled a basic Cartesian approach to epistemology. Few contem-
porary philosophers now share Descartes's optimism for the success of his project
largely because of the problem of skepticism that was a consequence of his
approach, and also because they would likely reject his view of the make up of
the event or act of knowing. We will return to many of these interesting issues
throughout the chapters that follow.
3. Marcel's General Argument for the Critique of Cartesianism
Let us now try to bring together in a slightly more formal way some of the points
we have been making. The particular argument which I will sketch in this section
is nowhere precisely stated in the course of Marcel's work. Also, since Marcel
focuses on some aspects of the argument more than others, which he often does
not develop in detail but instead leaves tantalizingly vague, a certain amount of
reconstruction of his basic position has been necessary. Nevertheless, the view
which I will sketch, is faithful to his work, and there can be little doubt that
Marcel clearly intended this argument to provide a forceful critique of the project
and concerns of traditional philosophy after Descartes. The central argument I
wish to highlight can be stated as follows:
(1) Being-in-a-situation is the fundamental mode of being of the human

subject. That is to say, the human subject is in essential and immediate
contact with the world through “situated involvement.”
(2) Being-in-a-situation is ontologically basic for the human subject.

Any and all other “levels” of selfhood must be explained and under-
stood in terms of being-in-a-situation.
(3) The view of the self as a detached, disinterested, universal ego, on

which Cartesian philosophy is founded, is based on an abstraction from
the ontologically prior level of being-in-a-situation.
(4) The human subject's particular ideas as a being-in-a-situation are

not abstractions, but involve a body and a world; further, they do not
come between the subject and the world. Therefore, the subject is sure
of its own existence, of the existence of others, and of the existence of
the external world.
(5) Human knowledge initially arises at the ontologically prior level of

being-in-a-situation, and the “objective knowledge” of Cartesianism,
including scientific knowledge, is founded on abstractions from this
level of being-in-a-situation and must be understood in terms of it, not
vice versa.
Marcel wishes to draw important conclusions from these central points:
(1) The epistemological problems of traditional and recent philosophy

are pseudo-problems.
(2) The detached, disinterested, universal ego of Cartesianism is not the

most basic nature of the human subject (if it is anything at all).
(3) The scientific view of knowledge is not the paradigm of knowledge.
(4) Although abstract reflection plays an important and essential role in

human life, it is not the most fundamental mode of reflection of the
human subject.
This reconstructs my interpretation of the essential steps in Marcel's critique

of modern philosophy after Descartes. Obviously, we have here a large and
complex argument. The chapters that follow will, in one way or another, flesh out
the detailed discussions involved in, and required by, the premises and the
conclusions, and will subject the specific steps and well as the overall argument
to analysis and critical discussion. I will be arguing that Marcel's thought
represents a genuine advance in continental philosophy, because he skillfully
avoids compromising either human subjectivity or the objectivity of knowledge,
and thus avoids the relativistic and skeptical excesses that have plagued recent
thought ever since Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980). And, just as
important, we will also see that he sidesteps some of the traditional philosophical
problems that have vexed analytic philosophers in this generation. 45
Two
HUMAN BEING AS A BEING-IN-A-

SITUATION
A key claim of Marcel's existential philosophy of the human person is that our
being-in-a-situation is ontologically prior to what Dreyfus has called “just look-
ing at things.” 1 He will aim to establish this point in part by means of concrete
phenomenological descriptions of various human experiences. This is the most
appropriate way to attempt to illustrate this conclusion, since he is attacking the
belief that conceptual knowledge is adequate to the task of capturing the nature
of human experience. In this and the next chapter, I will attempt to provide an
exposition of the main claims (identified in the previous chapter) of Marcel's
positive view in a way which seems to me to provide the clearest and most
cogent elaboration of his position. In this chapter, this will involve, first, a
consideration of Marcel's phenomenological analysis of human embodiment;
and, second, a phenomenological description of how the embodied situation of
the subject defines both the subject's experiences and the subject's ideas.
1. The Nature of Human Embodiment
It is phenomenological reflection on the intriguing, but elusive, nature of human

embodiment that initially leads Marcel to think that we may not be related to and
may not experience the world in the way Descartes thought, a way which later
came to dominate modern and much of contemporary philosophy. Marcel att-
empts to describe the relationship human beings have to their own bodies in
order to uncover or reveal the significance of our embodied context for our
personal situation in existence, for our concrete experiences, and, above all, for
our individual ideas. He is convinced that the Cartesian analysis of the relation-
ship of mind (or self) to body is superficial. It is important at the outset to point
out that Marcel is not concerned with an exploration of issues which would be
more appropriate to the subject matter of the philosophy of mind. Indeed, he
shares Descartes's conviction that the mind cannot be reduced to the body, noting
that: “On this point, Descartes was right…consciousness is essentially something
that is the contrary of a body, of a thing….” 2 He is concerned rather with the
human subject's experience of his or her own body, and the significance of this
experience for the subject's involvement in existence. The problem of embod-
iment, for Marcel, is one where we must specify the relationship between the
conscious subject (or the subject who is aware of itself) and his or her
embodiment (the fact that he or she is an embodied subject).
I will concentrate on the following aspects of Marcel's analysis, and in the
order stated, for this approach seems to me to reflect the strongest statement of
his view on the issue of human embodiment 3 : (1) the non-instrumental nature of
the body, and the fact that the body cannot be regarded as a possession; (2) the
“mysterious” relationship of the body to the conscious subject; (3) the critique of
the traditional view of sensation; (4) the positive account of the nature of feeling;
and (5) the non-“problematical” nature of embodiment.
One of the legacies of the Cartesian position (described in detail in chapter
1), is that the mind is in a sense located in a body apprehending the world
through clear and distinct ideas. In addition, according to Descartes, the mind is
more easily known than the body, and exercises control over the body. This view
leads Descartes to conclude that, in order to examine and understand the content
of our ideas, we do not need to consider the fact of our embodiment at all. In fact,
for Descartes, so unconnected to the subject's ideas is the fact of embodiment that
it is even possible to doubt that we have a body. It is just such speculations that
convince Marcel that something is radically wrong with the Cartesian analysis.
Descartes offers an essentially instrumentalist interpretation of the body. On this
view, the body is regarded as merely an object or an instrument over which the
self (ego) has control. Marcel holds, however, that our “situated involvement” in
existence defines a different relation. He notes that,
body and soul . . . are treated as things, and things, for the purposes of
logical discourse, become terms, which one imagines as strictly defined,
and as linked to each other by some determinable relation. I want to
show that if we reflect on what is implied by the datum of my body, by
what I cannot help calling my body, this postulate that body and soul are
things must be rejected; and this rejection entails consequences of the
first importance. 4
Marcel will reexamine this traditional understanding of the relationship between

the mind and the body. In this way, he will be critically examining the Cartesian
standpoint on one of its central and most influential tenets.
According to Marcel, the human self is discovered to be, on phen-
omenological analysis, fundamentally an embodied subject. 5 This embodiment
situates the subject in a particular context in the world. Because of the fact of
embodiment, the subject is involved in a complex system of relations in its
world, relations to events, circumstances, the objects of its experience, and to
other people. These relations define an involvement with, and knowledge of, the
world, which is not fully accessible to thought in clear and distinct ideas. That is
to say, our involvement with the world in our ordinary everyday embodied
experience is not transparent to thought (as Descartes believed it was). Never-
theless, our involvement in the world is manifested and recognized at the
ontologically basic level of being-in-a-situation. The experiences of the subject
are not simply experiences which the ego obtains through the medium of a body.
Human Being as a Being-in-a-Situation 25
The body is more than a medium, for Marcel; it is, in fact, partly constitutive of
the kinds of experiences I have, and these experiences make me the person I am.
In order to illustrate that the embodiment of the human subject is crucial to the
subject's situation in existence, that is, to the subject's own particular experiences
in its world, Marcel concentrates initially on the relationship between the
conscious subject and its body.
A. The Non-Instrumental Nature of the Body
One of the major insights of Marcel's phenomenological analysis of embodiment

is that the body is not an instrument, or a possession. An instrument is an art-
ificial means of extending, developing, or reinforcing a pre-existing power,
which must be possessed by anyone who wishes to make use of the instrument.
This is true even of simple cases such as cutting bread with a knife. 6 It is, of
course, possible to consider my body as an instrument, as if it were interposed
between objects and me. Here it takes on the role of an instrument, and like all
instruments, it can be described by an observer. In this case, I look upon my body
from the point of view of a third person. But Marcel argues that if I regard my
body as an object, or as an instrument, I run into serious problems. For instance,
if we regard our own body as an instrument we will not be able to avoid falling
into an infinite regress. If we hold that the body is an instrument of the self, are
we not, Marcel asks, in some way treating the self as also bodily (that is, as an
extended thing which uses the body)? But if this is the case, then it itself can also
be seen as an instrument of something further, and this leads to an infinite
regress. 7 We would be forced to end the regress by saying that an instrument can
be utilized by a principle which has a nature quite different from itself, that is, by
saying that a non-extended mind could act on an extended body, and this is not
satisfactory either. (This is a similar criticism to the one Princess Elizabeth of
Bohemia {1630–1714} made to Descartes. 8 ) These problems bring out a
misunderstanding in our initial analysis. They illustrate that the self is not related
to the body in any instrumental way. An analysis of the relationship of the self to
the body, which depicts the latter as an instrument of the former, treats the body
as if it were something outside of me, external to me, which I possess. But it is
precisely this understanding of the relationship between mind and body which we
must reject, according to Marcel.
Reflection upon the notion of ownership, Marcel suggests, reveals that I do
not regard my body as my possession. 9 Rather, the body is the model (not
shaped, but felt) to which I relate all other kinds of ownership. For example, my
ownership of my dog is understood in relation to the fact of my embodiment, and
my feeling that my body is mine. The fact that I can say I own a particular dog
means that the dog has a special relationship to me as an embodied subject,
which it does not have to any other person. This feeling is always present when I
own something. There is a kernel, which I feel to be there at the center in all
experiences of ownership. This kernel is an experience by which my body is

mine. 10 The body is, therefore, a condition of possessing something, and so
cannot itself be possessed. In this way, ownership involves a relationship to the
body, and not simply a relationship to a dematerialized ego. Marcel adds that it is
difficult to imagine how a dematerialized ego could be understood to possess
anything. 11 He describes our possessions as felt additions to our bodies. This
notion becomes clearer, he holds, when we consider how we feel when one of
our possessions is taken away from us. Our sense of dispossession intimately inv-
olves our experience of our embodiment.
Marcel argues that, in fact, my body is my body just in so far as I do not
regard it as an instrument. 12 In the case of the body, possession cannot be
dissociated from the possessor, if only because the body, unlike other poss-
essions, has no independent existence of its own. Rather, there is an unusual and
intimate relationship between me and my body, which cannot be accounted for in
instrumentalist terms. My body cannot be exchanged or disposed of without
completely dissolving the bond that makes it mine. To think of the body as a
possession is to banish the self to “an indeterminate sphere from which it
contemplates, without existing for itself, the anonymous play of the universal
mechanism.” 13 But this purely objective conception of the body fails to take note
of the bond that exists between my body and me. This relationship is far more
intimate than a normal relation of possession or instrumentality. John B.
O'Malley has pointed out that, as examples of noninstrumental communion
between me and my body, we may think “of an ingrained habit, of a perfected
skill, and of the ascetic grace of a saint.” 14 These experiences are non-instru-
mental because the activity is an integrated functioning of the whole self, and is
not just a bodily operation. These reflections indicate that my body should not be
regarded merely as something which I have. As Marcel puts it, “Instrumental
mediation can only take place within a world of objects, and between bodies, of
which none are regarded as my body.” 15 The self and the body are in a mys-
terious unity, which is not explicable by means of the traditional idea that the
body is an instrument of, or a possession of, the self.
B. The “Mysterious” Relationship between the Body and the Conscious

Subject
Although Marcel's phenomenological reflections on the relationship between the

conscious subject and the body lead him to criticize the traditional Cartesian
view, he wants to argue that this relationship is not a simple one to characterize.
Rather, it is an elusive relationship, and part of the mistake of Cartesianism was
in not recognizing this fact, and treating the relationship as if it were completely
accessible to reflective thought. According to Marcel, not only can I not look
upon my body as an instrument of the mind, but I also cannot look upon my mind
and body as being somehow the same thing. Neither of these alternatives
properly expresses my relationship to my own body. Rather, the human subject is

incarnate, and “disincarnation…is precluded by my very structure.” 16 Reflection
on the nature of the relationship illustrates that the relationship of the self to the
body cannot be fully captured, and accounted for, in objective thought. Marcel,
therefore, describes the relationship as “mysterious,” not because it is unknow-
able, but because, although it can be known by the subject, it nevertheless cannot
be fully articulated in conceptual analysis. This is how Marcel expresses it:
This [existential] philosophy is based on a datum which is not

transparent to reflection, and which, when reflected, implies an
awareness not of contradiction but of a fundamental mystery, becoming
an antinomy as soon as discursive thought tries to reduce or
problematize it. Existence (or better, existentiality)…is participation
insofar as participation cannot be objectified. 17
It is this antinomy that Marcel is referring to when he says that the relationship
between body and mind “resists being made wholly objective to the mind.” 18 He
concludes that our relationship with our own bodies is not transparent to itself,
and this non-transparency is implied in the fact that I cannot consider myself
existing apart from my own body. 19
This analysis gives us a clue to the fact that an appreciation of the nature of
the relationship between the body and ourselves as conscious subjects is crucial
for an adequate understanding of the way in which we experience the world, a
fact which Cartesianism had ignored. This is because my own body, by virtue of
the simple fact that it is mine, is privileged in my experience, and, as Marcel has
already suggested, plays a part in—that is, is partly constitutive of—my
experiences, for example, of ownership. But what the traditional interpretation
wished to do was to treat this relationship as if it was not privileged. 20 But all this
succeeded in doing was distorting the way in which the human self as knower
experiences the world.
These reflections about the nature of the relationship between the body and
the conscious subject lead Marcel to seriously doubt the accuracy of the
Cartesian analysis. But he does not make the mistake of proposing an alternative
clear definition of the relationship between mind and body. In fact, this is
precisely what he thinks cannot be done, and a major mistake of modern
philosophy is to think that it can. Rather, for Marcel, the relationship between
mind and body is “just that massive, indistinct sense of one's total existence
which…seems to be prior to all definition, [but which we are trying to give the]
name to, and evoke as an existential center.” 21 It is interesting to note that
Descartes himself appeared to suggest much the same thing in one of his letters
to Princess Elizabeth when he talked of “the union which everybody always
experiences in himself without philosophizing, namely that he is a single person
who has both a body and a mind….” 22 But Descartes's “official” position, of
course, is that the relationship between mind and body can be easily established
in just the way he himself proposes.
Peter A. Bertocci (1910–1989) has suggested a reply which Descartes might
make to Marcel's criticism, and it is instructive to briefly consider it before
continuing with our account of Marcel's analysis of embodiment. Bertocci says
that Descartes would reply to Marcel in the following way: “Unless you can
show that the mind and body are not distinct types of being, you too are faced, in
any theory of union or incarnation, with my problem. What you insist on in a
mysterious presence I am willing to accept as psychological certitude until I
become philosophical.” 23 However, the problem with this kind of criticism from
Marcel's point of view is that it seems to arbitrarily give priority to objective
(philosophical) thought, and assumes that the relationship between the body and
mind both can and must somehow be made objectively demonstrable. Bertocci is
insisting that Marcel provide an objective account in terms of conceptual know-
ledge (clear and distinct ideas), and clear logical relationships, of the relationship
of the body to the mind, the kind of account that would be part of what Marcel
refers to as the domain of primary reflection. He is saying that the mind and the
body can only, indeed “must,” be approached in a philosophical way, according
to his own (Cartesian) understanding of philosophy. But Marcel has been trying
to show that this is not the only way, or indeed the correct way, to approach the
matter. Recall that, according to Marcel, when we use the term “objective” we
usually mean depersonalized and disinterested concepts which are therefore
sharable, “public” and universal. Marcel, as we have seen, denies that this kind
of knowledge of the relationship between the body and the mind is possible. This
relationship cannot be fully known by objective thought, and this fact has cons-
equences of the first importance for our understanding of the nature of human
experience, and also for the nature of philosophy. It is this point he is expressing
in Creative Fidelity when he says, “Philosophy provides the means for
experience to become aware of itself, to apprehend itself…this enquiry must be
based on a certitude which is not rational or logical but existential . . . .” 24 We
must now develop Marcel's analysis further by turning to a consideration of the
important notion of feeling, which is obviously a crucial part of embodiment.
C. Critique of the Traditional Theory of Sensation
Marcel further supports his analysis of human embodiment by an analysis of

what goes on in sensation. Let us briefly examine his critique of the traditional
view of sensation, before considering his phenomenological analysis of what
actually happens in sensation. In his critique of the traditional view, Marcel
wants to illustrate that sensation should not be understood in the way usually
proposed by philosophers who are inspired by the Cartesian tradition, that is, as
the reception of a message. If Marcel is correct, then this is a further argument
against the view that the self just initially looks at things and forms clear and
distinct mental representations from this looking.

Marcel argues that we find it very difficult to avoid treating sensation as
something which is emitted by X and received by a subject, that is, as a mess-
age. 25 We are convinced that to sense involves a communication. But this view
involves an assumption. It is only when we consider sensation from the point of
view of the level of conceptual knowledge that sensation seems to be the
translation of a message received from a physical object. A closer analysis will
reveal that this account is inaccurate. Traditional epistemology has approached
the analysis of sensation from the assumption that the self is in a world receiving
messages in the form of inputs from “external objects.” Indeed, this view is now
very prevalent in contemporary philosophy. The uncritical view here is that an
object in the world sends out stimuli, which impinge on my sense organs. This
whole process is physical and pre-sensorial. I am then supposed to “translate”
this purely physical event into some kind of psychical event which somehow
produces a sensation. Marcel argues that this traditional view is conceived in
terms of transmitter and receiving station. The receiving station translates and
produces what I call my sensations.
Marcel argues that the problem with this view of sensation is simply that it
assumes conditions that cannot be realized. A translation is the rendering of one
set of data in terms of another set of data; but this translation would be imposs-
ible to achieve for a subject which did not possess the data in the first form. But
the physical events which are supposed to be given to me, and which I am
supposed to be translating, are not known to the subject, who is supposed to be
doing the translating. They involve, after all, complex physical, and indeed
psychical, operations, of which the person who has the related experiences has no
knowledge. The events are not given to me as sense data at all. If they were
given, this would mean that they would already be sensations, and we would be
still stuck with the problem of explaining how they got to be sensations. Marcel
holds that we are led astray here by the crude spatial image from which we
cannot get away. According to Kenneth T. Gallagher, there is, in fact, “no way in
which the data can be given to the senser, for it is of the very nature of a physical
event that it be infra-sensorial and not given to me as a datum.” 26 If we interpret
the event as an unconscious sensation so that we can claim that it is in some way
already given, we have still not explained how it is possible, and if we say it is
simply primordial, we have then failed to uphold the claim that sensation is a
message.
D. Feeling as Constitutive of my Situation
However, despite this critique of the traditional view of sensation, the notion of
sensation still remains one of the central notions in Marcel's analysis of embod-
iment. He draws particular attention to one of our most special feelings—the
intimate feeling I have that my body is mine. Marcel claims that human emb-
odiment involves a fundamental act of feeling, which cannot amount to mere

objective possession, nor to an instrumental relation, nor to something which
could be treated purely and simply as an identity of the subject with the object. 27
He develops this crucial point by an elaboration of the role feeling plays in my
situation. Embodiment places me in a situation, but embodiment intimately inv-
olves feeling, therefore, it is by means of feeling that I am placed in a situation.
He invokes the example of our sense of touch. I cannot touch your hand without
feeling that I am being touched at the same time. My body is at the same time
what feels and what is felt. This body-feeling has an absolute priority, because in
order to feel anything else, I must first of all feel my body as mine. Now this
immediate contact with my body puts me at the same time in direct contact with
the world.
To illustrate this point further, Marcel introduces the example of being out
walking with a friend:
I say I feel tired. My friend looks skeptical, since he, for his part, feels
no tiredness at all. I say to him, perhaps a little irritably, that nobody
who is not inside my skin can know what I feel. He will be forced to
agree, and yet, of course, he can always claim that I am attaching too
much importance to slight disagreeable sensations which he, if he felt
them, would resolutely ignore. It is all too clear that at this level no real
discussion is possible. For I can always say that even if what he calls
“the same sensations” were felt by him and not by me, still, they would
not really be, in their new setting, in the context of so many other
feelings and sensations that I do not share, the same sensations; and
that therefore his statement is meaningless. 28
I do not share his feelings because his embodiment places him in a fundamentally
different personal situation to mine, even though we are both in roughly the same
location, and undergoing similar experiences, that is, out walking together along
the same route, etc. (and there may be many other similarities as well). This
analysis illustrates that sensations, therefore, are intentional: they are “about” or
“of” something; and they give meaning. Marcel's example reveals, first, that I am
a being in a particular situation which is defined in part by my feelings, and,
second, that I am fundamentally an embodied subject. Marcel holds that all of my
experiences bear the marks of association with this body, which is mine. As he
puts it, I never go “beyond various modifications of my own self-feeling.” 29
Marcel's phrase “I am my body” 30 is meant to convey, not that I am identical
with my body, but the fact that I am bound up with my body, and not simply in
possession of my body. My body and I are not, therefore, mutually exclusive;
rather, each implies the other. This analysis is an attempt by Marcel to close the
gap between me and my body, which he believes traditional philosophy had
created.
E. The Non-“Problematical” Nature of My Embodiment
In further support of his view of the nature of the embodied subject, Marcel goes
on to attack yet another central tenet of the Cartesian view. He argues that,
contrary to one of the important steps in Descartes's development of the problem
of skepticism, it is not, in fact, logically possible for me to regard the existence of
my own body as the occasion for a problem, that is, as a subject for a dis-
interested inquiry. When we examine what is meant by a problem it becomes
clear that the body could never be so regarded. Marcel famously argues that a
problem is something that requires a solution that is available for everybody (we
will come back to this concept later in the chapter). In order to regard my own
body as a problem I would have to isolate myself from my immediate contact
with the world and focus on a disinterested representation of my own body. That
is, the problem of “my body,” like all problems, demands a detached, dis-
interested inquiry so that any conclusions drawn about it can be presented for all
to inspect (including me). Features of experience can only be presented as
problems for the mind if the mind first abstracts from the “situated involvement”
defining the lived experience of the inquirer, and can only be maintained and
discussed as problems if everyone involved in their appraisal does likewise. This
is precisely how problems are defined by the view which defines them, the
scientific view, which has had so much influence on traditional philosophy. It
must be possible in principle for everyone to put himself or herself in the place of
the inquirer, or inspector. Marcel expresses it thus: “For there is only a problem
when a particular content is detached from the context that unites it with the I.” 31
However, this is precisely what cannot be achieved, according to Marcel, in
the case of a consideration of the experience of “my body,” for my body involves
me, and as soon as I regard it as a problem, I no longer regard it as my body. The
point is that I cannot consistently regard “my body” as a problem. I can only set
up the relationship of “my body” to me as a problem “by very reason of the de-
tachment from myself to which I have proceeded so as to isolate and define this
totality of terms.” 32 But here I cease to look on my body as my body. I arbitrarily
deprive it of that absolute priority in virtue of which my body is posited as the
center in relation to which my experience and my universe are ordered. Marcel
continues: “Thus my body only becomes an occasion for a problem under
conditions such that the very problem [that is, the problem of “my body”] we
intended to state loses all meaning.” 33 It would only be by some sort of mental
sympathy that I could succeed in stating this problem in universal terms, that is,
in considering my body as if it were not mine. But as regards me, this problem
cannot be stated without contradiction.
What Marcel means here is that when I think my body (and not that of
another person to whom I give my name), I am in a situation which it becomes
impossible to account for in objective terms as soon as I substitute for it the idea
of a relation between terms that are hypothetically dissociated. 34 For, in ordinary

experience, I do not experience my body as an abstract object, but rather as that
which is definitive of the self as involved in the world. Marcel puts it this way:
“For if I effect this substitution I place myself in conditions [that is, in the con-
dition of a third party] that are strictly incompatible with the initial state which it
was my business to explain [that is, the problem of my body].” 35 Descartes might
reply that I can still look upon my body in an objective sense, and this is, of
course, true. But Marcel's point is that to look upon my body as a third party—
that is, to first isolate myself from my involvement in existence—and then to
wonder whether my body actually exists is an absurdity. 36 (We will come back to
this point later in Chapter 6.)
This analysis of embodiment has illustrated that the body should not be
regarded primarily as an instrument, or as a possession. We have seen that our
experience of our embodiment places the subject in a situation and is partly
constitutive of the subject's experiences, and therefore of the subject's particular
ideas; further, my experience of my embodiment logically cannot be regarded as
a problem. These important insights undermine the Cartesian view, and lead
Marcel to propose that the human subject is fundamentally a being-in-a-situation.
It is to this crucial claim that we must now turn.
2. Human Being as a Being-in-a-Situation
When Marcel argues that the human subject is a being-in-a-situation he means

that the fact of the subject's embodiment and the subject's situation—which place
the subject in a context and thereby in a world—are implicit in, and intimately
intertwined with, the subject's particular ideas. The very nature of the subject
depends on his embodied context—the subject's fundamental situation—not on
the causal system in which the subject is physically located. For a causal system
is not a context. We live in a context, not in a causal system. 37 It is by means of
his embodied context that the subject is in contact with reality—is involved in
it—and is not just simply gazing out upon it, through the medium of a body. In
her discussion of Marcel, Sonia Kruks has identified well those features of
existence which place the subject in a unique situation:
Firstly…the notion of subjectivity must itself be broadened to

acknowledge that the self is irreducibly sentient: it is not to be
conceived as an exclusively, or perhaps even a primarily, thinking,
knowing, or self-conscious subject. Secondly . . . through the
contingencies of physical birth, subjectivity comes to discover itself as
being of a particular physique, race, gender, etc., and as born into a
human situation—a particular spatial and temporal location, a general
and a personal history, a cultural and economic context, etc. 38
Marcel also sometimes calls this state of the subject the “non-contingency of the
empirical datum.” 39
Earlier we tried to illustrate how embodiment places the subject in a
context, which defines in part the subject's ideas. Now we must attempt to
elaborate that claim by considering what happens when we encounter the objects
of our experience, particularly physical objects. This is a very crucial issue
because is this particular aspect of Marcel's thought—and indeed of existentialist
thought in general—that is likely to receive the most opposition from those
philosophical traditions Marcel is attempting to criticize. So far as I can discover,
no philosopher has developed this issue in Marcel's thought in any detail. 40
Marcel tries to illustrate his claim that the subject is fundamentally a
being-in-a-situation by a phenomenological description of what we mean when
we say that something exists. Let us draw on his analysis and try to supplement it
with a detailed example. He claims that when I affirm that something exists, I
always mean that I consider this something as fundamentally connected with my
body. 41 The object always holds some initial significance for me by means of
which I affirm it as an object. Let us take an example to illustrate this claim. It
will be helpful to make the example as concrete as possible in an attempt to
clarify his main point.
We will focus on the situation where I am sitting at my desk working. I pick
up a book that is lying on the desk. When I pick up (say) a novel from my desk, I
do not see it merely or fundamentally as just a book, that is, as an instrument, or
as an object about which I wish to obtain knowledge, understood in the
traditional philosophical sense. I do not “just look at it” and see it as an isolated
object located in the cause and effect world of space and time, all ready for
inspection for the purposes of obtaining knowledge about it. According to
Marcel, this is not what goes on in ordinary everyday experience, what
Heidegger calls “everydayness” (this is how John Richardson {1951–} translates
the German word “Alltaglichkeit”), 42 and what I have called “situated
involvement.” Rather, I am “already” in a contextual situation which involves
both my past and my future; I am caught up in my context, and I see the “object”
as related to me in a way which is defined by my situation as an embodied
subject. I am, in short, internally related to (in a way that is hard to describe
clearly) the various “objects” of my experience.
Suppose I am working at my desk, engaged (let's say) in writing an essay
for a volume on Twentieth Century Anglo-Irish Literature. Books and notes
relevant to my project surround me. I pick up James Joyce's (1882–1941) Ulysses
in order to search for passages supporting my interpretation of Joyce's views on
language. I will immediately regard Ulysses as “familiar,” “necessary,” and
“relevant,” “very helpful,” etc., for my work. My immediate attitude if I had
picked up (say) Thomas Kilroy's (1934–), The Big Chapel, would likely be that it
will not be very helpful, as Kilroy is a lesser known Irish writer. I will experience
the book as fitting into a set of complex relationships. I will most likely
recognize the book, identify it as having a certain history, and as relevant for
certain future tasks. I will recognize that this is the copy of Ulysses which I
bought at Eason's bookstore in Dublin, which I have had for ten years, and which
is looking slightly the worst for wear. This is part of what the book means for me,
that is, it is part of my particular idea of this particular book.
To look at the issue from the other direction, there are no “books”
(understood in an abstract sense) in my experience at the level of “situated
involvement.” There are only copies of Ulysses (Revised fifth edition, paper-
back), The Big Chapel (first edition, hardback, front cover torn off, $2.50 used, a
great bargain bought at a bookstore in a Dublin side street, which I only
discovered because I had nowhere to park!), etc. These experiences of these
books will be constituted, not by some preformed judgment about what cons-
titutes a “book” (that is, not by some abstract concept I have of “book” which I
then apply to all objects of this kind which I encounter in my experience), but by
the fact that I am habitually in contact with and involved with books as meshed
in my contextual situation, that I have certain expectations with regard to them,
certain attitudes toward them, certain memories of them, and so on. My
experience of Ulysses will clearly bear the marks which are peculiar to, or which
arise in, just my situation in existence, a situation in which I am involved with
Ulysses.
Other books on my desk will mean other things to me, but their meaning
will never fully correspond to some abstract sense of “book,” but will always
involve some relationship to my projects and practices which will involve my
embodiment. Perhaps I will regard one of the books as initially significant for the
project I am engaged on; where I obtained the book (bookstore? library?
borrowed it from a friend?) might well be significant for evaluating its use for the
project. If an expert on Anglo-Irish literature recommended it to me, this might
be an indication that it will be of importance for my essay; if it came from the
library, I would feel that it might be useful (and then again it might not), etc.
When and how I previously used the book might be significant. These are all
possibilities of how the book might affect me. They are all defined by the web of
relationships the book enters into with regard to my particular situation in
existence; Marcel expresses it thus: “[The] object possesses . . . the power of
affecting in a thousand different ways the being of the person who contemplates
it . . . .” 43 (This insight influenced both Merleau-Ponty and Paul Ricouer. 44 ) This
analysis explains the feeling we often have that our ideas do have our personal
quality or stamp on them, why a book appears short to one person but long to
another, relevant to one person but irrelevant to another, how a profound exper-
ience (for example, bereavement) can change a person, why we feel at home in
one place, and a stranger in another, why even the taste of raspberries can have
different meanings for different people, and so forth. 45
In the ordinary, everyday world of the individual subject, the “objects” of
the subject's experience bear a certain relation to him which they do not bear to
anybody else. This is because these objects are defined by the subject in virtue of
the subject's embodiment in a particular situation in a world with other human
beings. To treat the object in isolation from the subject's own experiential context
is to distort the meaning of the object for the individual in question. It is to resort
to an (abstract) object, which, in fact, is not any particular subject's object. In the
realm of experience, we are in a kind of existential contact with reality, and are
not primarily mediating reality by means of clear and distinct ideas. That is to
say, the world is not primordially mediated through concepts (or, in more
contemporary philosophical language, through theories). Rather, “our fund-
amental situation” 46 in the world will define our “ideas,” for Marcel, and any
analysis or description of our ideas must involve a reference to a particular
human body, and to its particular place or “situation” in existence. As Marcel
puts it, “A man’s given circumstances, when he becomes inwardly aware of
them, can become . . . constitutive of” the self, and so “we must resist the
temptation to think . . . of the self’s situation, as having a real, embodied,
independent existence outside the self . . . .” 47
This is just what Descartes overlooked. His mistake was to think that we
primordially experience the world through clear and distinct ideas, or through
conceptual representations of one kind or another. A more careful description of
his own ideas would have led him to see that our ideas “involve” both a body and
a world. That is to say, my ideas bear the marks of my situation in existence, and
this must involve reference to both my embodiment and my world. Thus, we can
identify some of the features of embodied existence. The first thing to note is that
the experience of embodiment ensures that I am a being-in-a-situation, and,
according to Marcel, “The essence of man is to be in a situation.” 48 The fact that
I am of necessity in a situation means that my experience and knowledge of the
world will be shaped by my situation. For, as we saw above, my situation
determines the complex web of relations I find myself intimately involved with at
any given moment of my existence. The second closely related point is that my
situation ensures that I am a “being on the way.” 49 As Marcel says, “Our
itinerant condition is in no sense separable from the given circumstances, from
which in the case of each of us that condition borrows its special character….” 50
Our situation in existence is that of a wanderer. To be in a situation, and to be on
the move, are two complementary aspects of our condition. This means that I am
not a spectator of life—mine or anyone else's, nor am I a spectator of the world. I
am intimately involved in the various projects and practices which shape and
define my life. This is part of my essential structure as a human being. “Exp-
erience is not an object (gegenstand) . . . of something flung in my way,
something placed before me, facing me, in my path.” 51
What happens when we abstract from this involvement with reality is that
we attempt to disregard or “stand back” from the nexus of relationships which
define the meaning of objects for us in the world. In the act of abstraction,
thought becomes disinterested, and is not faithful to how objects actually affect
us in our experience. We might say that in our ordinary everyday experience of

“situated involvement” we are operating at a level of, to use another of Marcel's
phrases, submerged participation, and that in reflective thought we disengage
from this submerged participation by means of a process of abstraction that is an
integral part of the process of thought. We must now attempt to elaborate this
point.
My experience of an object is prior to the level of reflective thought. I am
not standing back from my fundamental situation when I pick up Joyce's Ulysses,
and delineating those aspects of my idea of Ulysses in an explicit act of attentive
discrimination. Rather, the act of reflection in which I attempt to identify some of
the “facts” about my experience of Ulysses will only occur as an abstraction from
my situation in everyday experience, and, therefore, as a derived reality only.
This act of reflection would usually, but not always, be prompted by problems
which arise in my experience. To continue with our example, if, when I picked
up Ulysses, I noticed that it had tea stains on the front cover, I might abstract
from my fundamental situation in existence and consider the book as a damaged
object, assess the damage to it, and its likely causes. Here I would not consider
the marks which arise in, and which are unique to, my particular embodied
context. I would instead regard the book as an abstract object, concerning which
I had a problem to solve. Or if, when I picked up the book, it appeared strange or
unfamiliar to me, I might “stand back” from my involvement with the world and
notice that it was not my copy of the book at all, but a copy which a friend had
forgotten. In this “standing back,” I am no longer operating at the level of
“situated involvement,” but at the level of thought, or of conceptual knowledge.
In the act of abstraction, we do not take the fact of embodiment, and the
nexus of relationships defined by our situation as embodied subjects, into
account. Rather, we try to set all of this aside. What happens at the level of
thought is that the images and pictures we have in our mind are separated from
our “situated involvement” with the world, and isolated and fixed in the language
of concepts. These concepts are not holistic (as we saw in Chapter 1). As we saw
there, Marcel is not saying that we have no mental content at all in our primordial
contact with the world, if I read him correctly. Rather, his claim is that we do not
naturally experience the world by gazing upon it, and forming clear and distinct
mental representations about it, which we then examine without reference to the
world for the purposes of obtaining knowledge about the world. Rather, the
subject's particular ideas at the level of “situated involvement” bear the marks of
the embodied situation of the subject, and are not “clear and distinct” ideas.
This process of abstraction comes later, if at all. In fact, I take Marcel to be
saying that this process of abstraction does not occur with any degree of clarity
for most of our ideas, and, for many of them, often cannot occur, such as our
ideas of love, and other central human experiences, including even the
experience of knowledge itself. This is borne out in Marcel's text by remarks
such as the following: “The more I actually participate in being, the less I am
capable of knowing or of saying in what it is that I participate, or more precisely,

the less such a question has any meaning for me.” 52 Like Heidegger, Marcel
rejects the idea that it is appearances that are the objects of experience. 53 At the
level of submerged participation, the mind directly experiences the world without
mediation from appearances. The term “mental representation” then may be
employed in Marcel's philosophy to refer to the particular ideas, images, pictures,
etc., of the world that the human subject has at this level of participation.
However, we must be careful not to allow this terminology to mislead. Mental
representations—ideas, pictures, images, etc. —at this level are not appearances,
and do not come between the subject and the things themselves. As Marcel says,
“I am in the world only insofar as the world is not a representation . . . .” 54
Ideas in the Cartesian sense, on the other hand, for Marcel, are concepts
which we form by abstracting from our experiences in “situated involvement,”
and by isolating certain specific features of the experience in a conceptual
representation, which we can then present as an “object” of knowledge for all to
consider. There is nothing wrong with this process, of course, and indeed it is an
essential operation of the mind. But we must not make the mistake of thinking
that our abstract ideas, therefore, represent the world as we actually experience
it, and, further, that it is possible to finally understand these ideas without making
reference to the world of “situated involvement” from which they are abstracted.
It is just this fallacy that has led to the myriad problems that have bedeviled
Cartesianism, not least the problem of skepticism, which still engages con-
temporary analytic philosophers. According to Marcel, all of these philosophers
have made the mistake of forgetting that “a philosophy which begins with the
cogito . . . runs the risk of never getting back to being.” 55
The process of abstraction forces discreteness on our experiences, and this
is a useful, and indeed necessary, part of the function of thought. But it is crucial
to realize that experience itself is not discrete, and that knowledge of it cannot be
fully obtained by the discreteness that characterizes thinking. Therefore, the way
to attain knowledge is the way Marcel himself follows—by means of phen-
omenological descriptions which attempt to elicit or evoke certain experiences in
the reader in order to “recover”, or to “reveal” in Marcel's phrase, the mystery of
being, or the unity of experience. Marcel recognizes that phenomenological
descriptions are sometimes hard to arrive at, depending on the subject matter we
are trying to describe, yet it is necessary for the philosopher to attempt to reveal
the necessary connections involved in the structure of human beings in their
contextual situations. Some conceptual analysis is also required, of course, but it
must not be pursued exclusively, and at the expense of the attempt to provide
phenomenological descriptions. (We will come back to this point in the next
chapter.)
Reflective thought involves reference to me as a universal subject, and, in
fact, is often itself usually only the result of a project of a specific type, as
Heidegger has pointed out. 56 But I can only refer to myself as a universal subject
if I first of all renounce my existential situation, that is, if I renounce my exis-

tence. I can establish the universal subject only if I consider myself not to be. I
can think about the object only if I acknowledge that I do not count for it, that is,
that its particular relationship to my existential situation can be disregarded in the
act of abstraction. In my existential situation, the object is given to me as part of
my particular condition in the world, it is present to me in a way in which the
“objects” considered by scientific knowledge are not. At this level, my know-
ledge of the world is, as Gallagher has put it, “forever recalcitrant to inclusion in
a totality which is available for anybody.” 57
Marcel's analysis has important consequences. For instance, the instrum-
ental interpretation of reality, which is the basis of science, now seems to be
founded on abstractions from our experience, from that level of involvement in
which we do not naturally and primordially experience, or come to know, objects
as instruments. This is a first indication that the scientific view (that is, the way
of primary reflection, which deals with the realm of problems) may not be the
paradigm way to do philosophy, for it now appears to be parasitical upon the
level of “situated involvement.” A second issue raised by his view relates to the
status of objective knowledge. How, on Marcel's view, is the realm of conceptual
knowledge to be understood, and how do we avoid epistemological relativism?
Is there not a danger on the view that Marcel has been developing of relativizing
objective knowledge to each individual subject (a danger, perhaps, that some of
the existentialist thinkers, including Heidegger, fell into)? We take up these
questions in the next chapter.
Three
THE OBJECTIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE

1. The Problem of Relativism
We have seen that Marcel, when he is working through philosophical and

phenomenological issues, is concerned to place the human subject at the center.
This means that we must take into account the contextual situation of the
subject—the fact that the subject's experiences and ideas involve both embodied
existence and a world—when we are analyzing philosophical problems. Marcel
has argued that the fact that the subject is best described as a being-in-a-situation
has profound significance for our understanding of various matters that have
attracted the attention of philosophers, such as the relationship of body to mind,
the nature of ideas, the nature of knowledge, and various other problems that we
will get into further in later chapters.
However, any emphasis on the contextual situation of the subject in an
analysis of philosophical problems brings with it a major problem of its own—
what we might call the problem of relativism. There is the danger that we may
end up relativizing some of these important matters (especially knowledge itself)
to the contextual situation of the subject who is doing the knowing. And if
everyone's contextual situation is importantly different, one wonders how we can
prevent this view from falling into a wholesale relativism. It is fair to say that this
is a problem that has bedeviled twentieth century continental philosophy. Indeed,
one of the most disconcerting features of twentieth century movements in Euro-
pean philosophy for many people is the attack on the objectivity of knowledge
that one finds running throughout the work of many of its major thinkers. Martin
Heidegger is an example, especially in his use of the concept of “thematizing.” 1
Heidegger develops this notion against the backdrop of his distinction between
the realm of being-in-the-world and the realm of conceptual knowledge. He
suggests that conceptual knowledge itself is very often carried out by the human
subject in relation to the subject's everyday, particular projects, and may be,
therefore, in some crucial sense, relative to the context in which it is practiced.
John Richardson has noted of Heidegger's view that “the theoretical attitude [is
not] an unmediated relationship in which we encounter bare facts; it depends on a
special projection all its own, in which we sketch in advance the Being of the
entities we then go on to discover.” 2 While this approach carries with it the
advantage of doing justice to human subjectivity in the acquisition of knowledge,
and also of recognizing, at least in Heidegger's work, the need to excavate the
primary level of being of dasein (the human subject), it also runs the risk of
falling into a kind of contextual relativism about knowledge claims. It has to be
said that many philosophers in the continental tradition fall into this mistake,
especially in the movements of structuralism, hermeneutics, critical theory, and
deconstruction.
It is hard to find any clear, detailed analysis of the exact nature of the rel-
ationship between the realm of being-in-the-world and the realm of conceptual
knowledge in the work of philosophers from any of these movements, yet the
main point suggested by Heidegger's approach became a mainstay of cont-
emporary European thought: that, in a crucial sense, conceptual or theoretical
knowledge of any type is not objectively true, but is relative to the context
(however broadly or unclearly this context is defined) in which the human
subject lives, or in which the community of inquirers live. A further example of
this type of approach can be found in the work of Roland Barthes (1915–1980),
who advanced the view that there can be no objectively true, trans-historical
meanings, no timeless or extra-linguistic essences, and that any attempt to
suggest otherwise can be unmasked as nothing more than an attempt to impose a
particular ideology on the masses. 3 In some fascinating essays, Barthes chall-
enges the traditional view of language and meaning, and by extension the
traditional understanding of knowledge and truth. He develops his critique
through an interesting, but radical, theory of literary criticism, one which holds
that traditional literary criticism is often misguided, in part because it is founded
on a traditional philosophical approach. For Barthes, we need a new under-
standing of how language, meaning and representation work in texts. He
proposes a new view that would revolutionize the study of literature and texts
generally, and by extension, our understanding of reality itself. His view involves
emphasizing human subjectivity and the human context in the reading and
deciphering of signs. But his position faces a serious problem because he
develops this new view of language and meaning at the expense of the objectivity
of knowledge. And like many thinkers in the same tradition, he nowhere tells us
how we can deal with the practical effects of this relativism in ordinary life. The
problems facing both epistemological and moral relativism are well documented,
yet Barthes gives them no attention. Nor does he explain how the objective
claims he himself is making about language and meaning, the nature of signs,
how representation works, etc., do not themselves fall victim to the very
relativism he is espousing. This move toward relativism and ultimately skep-
ticism about the nature of knowledge reached its fullest and most ingenious
expression in the work of Jacques Derrida (1930–2004).
Derrida is famous for arguing that all western philosophers have been
mistaken in their belief that being is presence, and presence is to be understood
as something which is akin to substance, sameness, identity, essence, clear and
distinct ideas, etc. For, according to Derrida, all identities, presences, and pred-
ications depend for their existence on something outside themselves, something
which is absent and different from themselves. This means that all identities
involve their differences and relations; these differences and relations are aspects
The Objectivity of Knowledge 41
or features outside of the object—different from it, yet related to it—yet they are
never fully present. Or to put his thesis in a way that sounds a lot like Barthes:
reality itself is a kind of “free play” of différance (a new term coined by Derrida);
no identities really exist (in the traditional sense) at this level; identities are
simply constructs of the mind, and essentially of language. 4
A consequence of these views is that no knowledge claim can be objective
in the sense that it is trans-historical or transcendental, or independent of all
viewpoints or contexts. Rather, all identities (and hence all meanings), including
those which make logic and rationality possible, are relative to history and
culture. I believe that these relativistic and skeptical tendencies in the thought of
Derrida and Barthes, and of other continental philosophers who hold very similar
views (such as Michel Foucault{1921–1984}), cannot be successfully defended,
yet that issue is not my concern here. The problems with these views have been
well documented, but let me just summarize two here, before moving on to
discuss how Marcel's work tackles these difficulties. Postmodernist thinkers, it
seems to me, cannot avoid either of two very serious objections, both of which
are fatal to the postmodernist attack on the objectivity of knowledge and
meaning.
First, if deconstruction itself is a true theory, that is, a theory which tells us
the way the world really is, or how things essentially stand, then its proponents
appear to be committed to those extra-linguistic truths, and timeless essences,
which they officially deny. Here are some examples of metaphysical statements
from their works: “There is not a single signified that escapes . . . the play of
signifying references that constitute language” (Derrida); or “The book itself is
only a tissue of signs. . .” (Barthes). 5 That is to say, any philosopher who
advocates epistemological relativism runs into the problem that they themselves
are making objectively true claims in their defense of their view. They are
making objectively true epistemological claims that are not themselves subject
to the relativizing tendencies of the mind and/or culture and/or language that
other (contrary) epistemological claims are subject to! What this means in
practice is that these philosophers are in fact claiming that their own ways of
knowing, and their own minds, can get out to reality—past the relativizing
structures—to see and discover things as they really are. But if they can do this,
then so can others; further, they are obliged to debate their conclusions with
those others (such as Marcel) who agree that the mind can get out to reality in
many circumstances, but who disagree with these philosophers about the nature
of reality.
The second problem is a variant of the first. This is the point that all
relativistic theories involve a contradiction. We can illustrate this point briefly in
Derrida by noting that if the view of identity and presence, and the view of
language and reality, which he advances in his works is true, then it would be
true to say that, for Derrida, reality is différance, and not presence. This point is
nicely supported by the fact that, as just noted, Derrida's works are full of
substantive (or metaphysical) claims about the natures of language and meaning.
Here are a few more examples: “Writing can never be totally inhabited by the
voice.” 6 Or: “The trace is nothing, it is not an entity, it exceeds the question
What is? and contingently makes it possible.” 7 Or: “. . . the notions of property,
appropriation and self-presence, so central to logocentric metaphysics, are
essentially dependent on an oppositional relation with otherness. In this sense,
identity presupposes alterity.” 8 These are the literal meanings which Derrida
wishes us to take away from his texts. For Derrida, it would be false to say, for
example, that identity does not presuppose alterity, or that logocentric meta-
physics does not involve an operational relationship with otherness, and so on.
Derrida is making metaphysical claims about the nature of knowledge, and so
contradicting his general view that there are no objectively true metaphysical
claims to be made about knowledge, language and meaning. 9 So we must
therefore note carefully a serious problem afflicting the Heideggerian-Barthian-
Derridean route toward a philosophy based on human subjectivity. In their desire
to give almost absolute priority to the human subject, these philosophers seem
unable to avoid relativism, skepticism and ultimately nihilism about knowledge,
language, and meaning. And eventually the self too has to succumb to their
critique. This was a problem that haunted existentialist philosophers such as
Sartre and Albert Camus (1913–1960) in the domain of ethics; in subsequent
philosophical movements, it haunts philosophers in the domains of metaphysics
and epistemology.
2. Particular and Abstract Ideas
In what follows I will suggest that Marcel's work can help us with precisely this
problem: that is, with the problem of trying to ensure a significant role for the
human subject in philosophy without sacrificing the objectivity of knowledge.
Although it is appropriate to describe Marcel as a (Christian) existentialist philo-
sopher, it is also appropriate, in my view, to describe him as a realist who
believes in the objectivity of knowledge. I believe that Marcel is a realist in the
sense that he holds the view that the human mind can come to know reality just
as it is in itself. That is to say, Marcel believes that the objects of our experience
are real, and can be known objectively by all in conceptual knowledge just as
they are in themselves. In Being and Having, he acknowledges that in answer to
the question “Does our knowledge of particular things come to bear on the things
themselves or on their Ideas?” we must say that it is “Impossible not to adopt the
realist solution.” 10 In The Existential Background of Human Dignity, he says he
prefers the term “existential realism,” because this term specifies that the exist-
ence of things is apprehended by incarnate beings “like you and me, and by
virtue of our being incarnate” [and therefore not primarily in virtue of an abstract
concept matching up with an object outside the mind]. 11 Yet there is no doubt
that Marcel is sympathetic with the general shift of the movement of exist-
entialism away from the abstract systems of Cartesian philosophy to a more

concrete philosophy of the subject. He is also committed to placing human
subjectivity at the center of the philosophical task. I will attempt to outline how
Marcel's philosophy offers us a way to do justice to, and maintain the priority of,
human subjectivity and individuality without falling into the relativism and
skepticism that has tended to accompany such notions.
The way of reading Marcel which I will develop in the rest of this chapter is
not developed in any detail in Marcel's thought, although I believe it is quite
explicitly stated in general outline. And although a certain amount of recon-
struction is necessary, as it is in the exposition of many of Marcel's main themes,
I think that there is sufficient evidence both textually and thematically to claim
with reasonable certainty that the view which I will outline here was held by him.
I will concentrate on an analysis of the two realms of knowledge identified by
Marcel, that of being-in-a-situation, or what I sometimes call “situated involve-
ment,” and that of conceptual thought. I will attempt to illustrate the difference
between the two realms, as well as the nature of the relationship between them,
in terms of what I call particular and abstract ideas. Although Marcel does not
use these terms, I think they do help to clarify further both of the main realms of
knowledge in his thought.
It is an important theme in Marcel's work that our ideas essentially involve
both a body and a world which contribute fundamentally to their particular
character. Marcel holds that if we examine our ideas phenomenologically we will
discover, first, that the fact of embodiment, and the context of the subject, are
internally related to our ideas and, second, that so called “clear and distinct
ideas” (or abstract ideas) are simply abstractions from this more fundamental
level of “situated involvement” in which the “objects” of our experience have
very different (personal, particular) meanings for the individual than the mean-
ings presented in the mind in “clear and distinct” (abstract, public) ideas. (A
reminder that the word “object” should be understood in a broad sense in the
context of Marcel's thought, and can refer to any aspect of experience which can
produce meaningful content for the human mind.) We must now elaborate these
points in more detail.
According to Marcel, when I encounter an “object” in my experience I do
not simply “regard” it as an “object” in the abstract sense of object (that is, in the
sense of “object” to which our concept would correspond). I do not “just look at
it” and see it as a conceptual problem, part of the cause and effect world, ready to
be studied in theoretical thinking. 12 This would not be an adequate phen-
omenological description of ordinary experience. For in ordinary everyday
experience, there are certain features of existence that place the subject in a
unique situation. First, the subject, for Marcel, is irreducibly sentient, and is not
exclusively a thinking, or knowing, or self-conscious subject (though Marcel
does not wish to deny the importance of these aspects of human experience). He
notes that “we think of this impenetrability…but we think of it as not completely
thinkable. Just as my body is thought of in so far as it is a body, but my thought

collides with the fact that it is my body.” 13 Second, as noted in chapter 2, through
the contingencies of physical birth, the subject is placed in a specific context by
its physique, race, gender, spatial and temporal location, national identity,
cultural and economic situation, etc. 14 As Marcel has noted, “The essence of man
is to be in a situation.” 15
I would like to draw attention here to what I call the subject's particular
ideas in an attempt to illustrate the way in which the embodied context of the
subject influences a subject's ideas. I am introducing the term “particular idea”
here to distinguish this kind of idea from an “abstract idea.” A particular idea is
the idea of an object a particular human subject in a particular human situation
has; whereas an abstract idea is the idea of that same object that all human
subjects share. A further, and higher, level of abstraction would reveal the
general idea of objects of that kind. For example, my idea of my copy of Marcel's
Being and Having is a particular idea, different in important respects from the
particular idea others have of Marcel's book, and also different from the abstract
idea of that same book which all people acquainted with the book share. The
concept “book” would then involve a further level of abstraction. Obviously
there will be points of similarity and overlap in any comparison of different
subjects' particular ideas of Marcel's book. Yet the differences are crucial
because it will turn out that the particular ideas of each subject bear the marks
which are peculiar to, and which are unique in, that particular subject's embodied
situation in existence. And since no two subjects have identical embodied
situations (although they may have similar situations), then each subject's
particular ideas will be importantly different from every other subject's particular
ideas. Of course, this distinction needs to be explained and elaborated in more
detail by means of an example. Marcel refers to the example of the peasant and
his relationship to the soil. It will be helpful to make this example as concrete as
possible (more concrete than Marcel makes it) in an attempt to clarify Marcel's
main point.
Suppose the peasant is plowing his favorite field in order to plant potatoes.
This is the field for which he saved his earnings over several years, and then
acquired by a skillful piece of bidding at an auction. Let us say that he also took
something of a risk in buying it. But it has consistently yielded good crops of
potatoes for him. In addition, he always seems to get a good financial return for
the crops harvested in this particular field. He nearly always plants this field at
his favorite time of year, and it plows easily. In this peasant's unique existential
situation, it is quite easy to see that he does not see his land as an (abstract)
“object.” The meaning of the concept “field” is not identical with the meaning
the field has for him in his personal experience. So when he says to the
neighboring farmer, “I am ready to plow the field this week,” the concept “field”
which is referred to in this remark, and which both men share, and which makes
possible communication between them, does not fully capture, convey, or
adequately represent the actual meaning the field has for the peasant in his
unique existential situation. Nor will the concept capture the existential meaning
.
the field has for the neighboring peasant either. Nor is it intended to. Of course,
the (abstract) concept “field” has a similar meaning for both peasants. The
different existential meaning the field in question has for both men will be
defined by each one's unique existential situation, or condition, in their world.
Further, the peasant does not need to appreciate in any clear way the distinction
between the conceptual meaning of the field and what we might call its non-
conceptual, existential meaning. However, it is a crucial distinction nonetheless.
Let us speculate further on what the field in question might mean to this
particular peasant. That is, let us try to describe phenomenologically the peasant's
particular idea of this field, rather than his abstract idea of the field. It is clear
that he does not look upon this piece of land as just another field, as the passerby
might look upon it. Rather, as Marcel puts it, his soil transcends everything he
sees around him; and in some mysterious but yet tangible way it is linked to his
inner being. Marcel notes that,
We have thus progressed…toward a concept of real participation which

can no longer be translated into the language of outer objects. It is
perfectly clear that the soil to which the peasant is so passionately
attached is not something about which we can really speak. We can say
the peasant's soil transcends everything that he sees around him, that it
is linked to his inner being, and by that we must understand not only to
his acts but to his sufferings. 16
In other words, the peasant's experience with, and participation in, the activity of
plowing the soil in this particular field in order to plant his potatoes is internally
related to his embodied situation in existence: to his past activities in relation to
this field (how he acquired it, worked it in the past, etc.); to his future projects
with regard to the soil; to his day to day relationship with the soil, and so forth.
All of these experiences help to define the meaning of this field for this particular
peasant. And since no two individuals have identical situations in existence, the
existential meaning of any common object of their experience will never be
identical for both of them. (It was in this sense that Henry Bergson (1859–1941)
argued that conceptual knowledge had a practical use. For it allows us to speak
of objects, and to utilize objects, which each person inevitably experiences
differently. 17 ) There is also a real sense in which the meaning of the peasant’s
life is defined for him by his particular ideas, since the ideas are defined by his
situation, and the ideas help to define his experience of self in a very significant
way.
Marcel compares the peasant's experience of the soil with that of the tourist
or artist, saying that “the contrast between the soil experienced in this way [by
the peasant] as a sort of inner presence, and anything that a landscape may be to
the amateur of beauty who appreciates it and who selects a few epithets from his
stock to pin down its salient notes, is surely as deep and as firmly rooted as could
be.” 18 An artist, for example, will also participate (or be “involved”) in such a
landscape, but in a way that will be quite different to that of either the peasant or
the tourist. The meaning of the field for the artist will be defined by his work as
an artist, and so the field will inevitably have a different meaning for him. He
might see it as source of an exciting landscape for his work; or as potentially part
of a larger project; or as a way of illustrating a theme he has been thinking about.
The tourist will have yet different experiences with regard to the field. The point
is that the particular idea each has of this field is defined by the embodied
context or “situated involvement” of each in their world, or, in other words, by
the “situated involvement” of each one's life. As Marcel says, “Our itinerant
condition cannot be separated from our given circumstances, from which in the
case of each of us that condition borrows its character.” 19
It will be helpful to make some further clarifications in our description of
the peasant's experience of the soil. We might wonder if these various exp-
eriences that people have with regard to the field are merely passing experiences
that are affected by a thousand different things in the life of the person who has
the experience, but which are not really lasting experiences that could be said to
have meaning in the sense of giving significant knowledge to the peasant or the
artist. Are we making too much of the admittedly various (but perhaps still quite
insignificant?) ways that objects can affect us is our particular lives? It is
important I think to point out that for Marcel these experiences or attitudes are
not just suggestions that the soil and landscape throw out to the peasant or to the
artist, nor are either simply being reminded of past events through their various
present experiences of the soil, nor are they engaging in simple imaginings, or
sentimental flashbacks. Rather, this is what the soil means for each. In the
language of existentialism, their experiences take place at the level of existential
contact, and not at the level of reflection. Undoubtedly, there is an important
relationship between the concept (the abstract idea) and the particular idea of
each object of experience (and the history of philosophy has yielded different
accounts of this relationship), yet the key point for Marcel is that the concept is
abstract, general, public, whereas the particular idea the individual has is
particular, personal and somewhat private. In short, the experiences each person
has (which give rise to the particular ideas) are what they are through the
involvement of a particular embodied subject with this soil. It is this level of
existential contact that we must evoke in order to get even a glimpse of the
meaning of each individual's experiences. As we noted in chapter 2, each human
being encounters the “objects” of their experience in different ways, even though
much about their respective experiences may be quite similar. If we insist on
continually approaching epistemological issues by considering the object in
isolation from the subject's own experiential context, and insist that this is the
way it should be exclusively regarded, we end up with misleading and ultimately
irresolvable philosophical problems.
3. The Relationship between Experience and Reflection
It is an important part of our analysis to also consider the relationship between

the two realms we have been discussing in this chapter: the realm of being-in-a-
situation (particular ideas), and the realm of conceptual knowledge (abstract
ideas). This will also require us to pay close attention to Marcel's notion of the
realm of primary reflection, and how this realm differs from the realm of being-
in-a-situation. This will help us to explain how Marcel safeguards the objectivity
of knowledge. The key point to note is that the objectivity of knowledge is
preserved precisely in the move to abstraction. Acts of abstraction leave out the
contextual situation of the object in our experience. Our special context, and the
meanings present there, are bracketed out in the move to conceptual thinking.
Marcel is drawing attention to the point that, prior to conceptual knowledge, all
the “objects” of the individual's experience are permeated with special, particular
meanings, meanings that are defined and conditioned by the individual subject's
embodied situation in the world. But in conceptual knowledge certain essential
features of these meanings are (in some cases often with great difficulty)
abstracted by the intellect and presented as “objects” of knowledge available for
all to consider. But obviously something will be lost here in this process of
abstraction—that which has been mine in the experience, that which “situates” it
in my life and makes it personal. 20 This explains why it is often very difficult for
us to adequately express many of our experiences at the conceptual level. Marcel
has tried to develop a way around this problem, not just by appealing to the
phenomenological method, but also by his emphasis throughout his work on the
creative role of the artist, and on dramatic art, as a way to evoke or reveal the
nature of the human subject in its world. 21
Focusing on the process of abstraction brings us to consider what Marcel
calls the realm of primary reflection. According to Marcel, primary reflection
“tends to dissolve the unity of experience which is first put before it” 22 ; and he
also says that reflection “is in a sense one of life's ways of rising from one level
to another.” 23 Primary reflection includes normal, everyday reflection, as well as
more complex theoretical thinking, and it involves conceptual generalizations,
and the use of abstract thinking. This kind of thinking seeks demonstrable,
functional connections and is operative in the sciences, mathematics, and
“theoretical thinking” of any kind, including philosophy itself. It involves a
“standing back” from, or abstraction from, our fundamental involvement with
things, and engages in an inquiry which proceeds by means of disinterested
concepts, which have shareable, public, and, therefore, universal content.
According to Marcel, primary reflection normally arises when the
individual is confronted by a problem at the level of experience. However, a
problem requires a solution that is available for everybody. But essential features
of experience can only be presented as “problems” for everybody to consider if

the individual first abstracts from the “situated involvement” which defines the
lived experience of the inquirer, and these essential features can only be
maintained and discussed as problems if everyone involved in their appraisal
does likewise. Marcel refers to an example from his school days:
There is a story . . . that I often tell of how I had to pass an examination

in physics which included, as a practical test, an experiment to deter-
mine one of the simple electrical formulae . . . . and I found myself
quite incapable of joining the wires properly; so no current came
through . . . It remains true in principle that any body and everybody
can join up the wires, enable the current to pass through . . . Conversely,
we must say that the further the intelligence passes beyond the limits of
a purely technical activity, the less the reference to the “no matter
whom,” the “anybody at all,” is applicable . . . . 24
We can apply this point to the peasant example. Suppose that the peasant is
plowing his field when the tractor suddenly stops working. In this instance, the
peasant will “abstract” (or disengage) from his “being-in-a-situation” of plowing
the field and focus on the problem, that is, on the broken tractor itself. Perhaps
the peasant will notice that the distributor cable is damaged, and will set about
repairing it. This problem, however, is one that could, in principle, be identified
and solved by the peasant's neighbor, or by any person. Primary reflection is,
therefore, problem-solving thinking. It requires abstract concepts that allow us to
publicly formulate and hopefully solve problems. This is true no matter how
complex the problem is.
It should be clear that the level of primary reflection is in fact the level
where we can obtain objective knowledge. We move to this level from the level
of experience. It is here that later continental philosophers could not avoid
relativism. But Marcel avoids this trap, because when we move to the level of
conceptual knowledge in the act of reflection, there is nothing going on in the
relationship between our beliefs and the world which would relativize our
knowledge claims. That which might be responsible for relativizing knowledge,
the contextual situation of the subject, is precisely what is set aside in the act of
abstraction. And so the concepts employed at the theoretical level are objective in
two crucial senses. First, they represent essential features of the objects of
experience (at an abstract level) as they really are in the objects, and second,
these essential features are also objective in the important sense that they are
understood by everyone in the same way. This is clear from Marcel's example of
the electrical experiment. How else would human beings be able to collectively
analyze and understand electrical theory, add to our knowledge of it, and estab-
lish that the laws of various electrical theories are true?
If we apply this conclusion to our example of the peasant's problem with the
distributor cable, we see that his (and indeed everybody's) conceptual analysis of
this problem will involve concepts which adequately represent essential features
of the object in question as they really are, for example, the shape of the
distributor cable, its length, physical make-up, color, relationship to other engine
parts, etc. Also, the neighboring peasant (and indeed anybody who contemplates
the object) will understand conceptually these features in exactly the same way
as the peasant. Hence, this knowledge is objective because, first, it adequately
represents essential features of the objects of experience just as they are in them-
selves, and, second, it represents these features in the same way for all,
regardless of each person's embodied situation in existence. Yet, in our example,
the peasant and his neighbor will still have different particular ideas of the
engine part. For example, the peasant may be particularly adept (and
experienced), and his neighbor particularly inept, at repairing engines. These
respective experiences (and various others) would therefore affect each man's
particular ideas of engine parts.
The examples I have discussed are simple examples of conceptual abs-
traction, but Marcel's insights apply also to all kinds of conceptual knowledge,
including more complex types, such as theories. Theories consist of organized
bodies of concepts, between which there will usually be complicated logical
relationships; but these concepts are still abstracted from experience. So theories
too will be objectively true (if they adequately represent reality) in the sense just
described. A scientific theory, for example, would be objectively true if the parts
of reality represented by the concepts utilized in the theory are represented just as
they really are. And, of course, all who contemplate them will understand these
concepts in the same way. 25 This would be true, for example, for all those who
work on the theory of evolution. They will all understand and utilize the main
concepts of the theory (such as macroevolution, mircoevolution, natural
selection, survival of the fittest, etc.), in more or less the same way. Otherwise,
collective work on the theory would not be possible. It is true that Marcel does
not elaborate in any way exactly how the mind in conceptual knowledge
adequately represents key features of the objects of experience as they are in
themselves. In short, he has no detailed, positive account of intentionality. (It
must be pointed out that, in this respect, he is similar to most contemporary
European philosophers, including Derrida). But I believe I am right in arguing
that Marcel nevertheless holds that knowledge is objective in the two crucial
senses which I have described. In this way, Marcel's analysis of the realm of
primary reflection and the realm of experience (or existential contact) clearly
does justice to the individuality of human experience, while also safeguarding the
objectivity of knowledge.
Marcel has attempted to develop a way that allows him to place the con-
textual situation of the human subject at the center of epistemology in a way that
previous thinkers did not (such as Descartes), but also without falling into the
problem of relativizing all knowledge claims to the contextual situation of the
subject. This was where many continental philosophers (some inadvertently

perhaps) fell into relativism. For it was in the move from the realm of experience
(or being-in-the-world) to the realm of conceptual knowledge that many inf-
luential contemporary European philosophers (for example, Heidegger, Barthes,
Foucault, Derrida) made a fatal mistake, a mistake which took them (and nearly
all of the movements of which they were a part) inexorably in the direction of
relativism about knowledge. As mentioned at the outset of this chapter, recent
philosophers such as Derrida, influenced by Heidegger, claimed that conceptual
knowledge itself, just like every other experience of being-in-the-world, is
relative to the context of the inquirer. This applies also, and perhaps especially
to, theories, although it must be pointed out that Derrida and his followers never
provide a single clear, detailed description of a concrete case illustrating exactly
how conceptual knowledge is permanently compromised by the ineluctable
priority of human subjectivity. Marcel avoids these difficulties, and the relat-
ivism which gives rise to them, in the way we have just seen. He avoids these
unpleasant consequences by holding that the level of being-in-a-situation, or
situated involvement, is what it is because of a particular context, but that this
particular context does not compromise in any way the objectivity of knowledge,
which remains secure on the abstract, conceptual level.
Marcel, however, famously warns against placing too much emphasis on
the objectivity which is the defining characteristic of primary reflection. He does
this because of his work in phenomenology which leads him to conclude that
many of the human subject's most profound experiences simply will not submit
to the requirements of primary reflection. This is because many of the individual
subject's personal experiences cannot be fully captured in concepts, which, after
all, are supposed to be essentially disinterested, and have sharable, public
content. He is particularly keen to ensure that the human subject itself is not
treated in primary reflection as just another object among objects. 26 This is very
important because one of the great abuses of modern thought has been its
tendency to try to objectify all human experience in concepts, and failing this, to
judge that any experience which cannot be so objectified is not worthy of serious
philosophical consideration. In opposition to this, Marcel holds that there is a
whole range of experiences that cannot be fully objectified in conceptual
knowledge. 27 These experiences occur in what Marcel sometimes calls the realm
of mystery, not because it is an unknowable realm, but because it is a realm,
which cannot be fully captured in primary reflection. 28 Some of the “mysteries”
of Being, according to Marcel, include our particular being-in-a-situation, our
experience of our own embodiment, the unity of body and mind, the nature of
sensation, and the higher levels of Being: the “concrete approaches” of love,
hope, fidelity and faith. 29 (In the next chapter, we will consider the realm of
mystery more closely.)
By drawing a clear distinction between the level of being-in-a-situation, and
the level of conceptual knowledge, and by profoundly illuminating the nature of
the relationship between them, Marcel wishes to show not only the importance,
but also the limits of primary reflection. At the same time he wishes to preserve
the integrity and dignity of the human person by doing appropriate justice to
human subjectivity. Approaching the matter from the other direction, we might
say that Marcel wishes to show not only the importance, but also the limits of
human subjectivity, and at the same time in doing this he preserves the obj-
ectivity of knowledge. This is a crucial achievement because there is probably no
tendency more than relativism about either epistemology or morality that has
given philosophy a bad name in the twentieth century. Marcel realizes that if
philosophy is to have any value, and is to help people understand better the
human condition, their experiences and the universe, it must at least aspire to the
objectivity of knowledge. We must attempt at least to develop our philosophical
positions and our worldview in an objective way, no matter what the obstacles
presented by the subject matter, and no matter what the resistance might be
within the philosophical community. It is to an elaboration of these matters that
we must now turn.
Four
SECONDARY REFLECTION, ETHICS AND

THE TRANSCENDENT
1. Marcel's Theistic Worldview
Gradually over the course of his career, Marcel came to adopt a fundamentally
Christian worldview, informed especially by a Christian existentialist view of the
human person. Although present in a more inchoate way in his early work, this
view became progressively more explicit in his later thought, eventually being
responsible for earning him the label “theistic existentialist.” Marcel's early
works, Metaphysical Journal and Being and Having, written mostly in a diary
format, offer a set of probing, but inchoate and often scattered thoughts on a
variety of subjects. Yet his reflections in these early works laid the seeds for his
religious conversion. He came to realize that his fundamental ideas, although
developed within an existentialist framework, were nevertheless compatible with
(and later came to require) a religious view of the world, as a way of giving exp-
ression to his experiences of the transcendent. Marcel’s ideas were steadily
progressing in a spiritual direction. As he later put it in The Philosophy of
Existentialism: “It is quite possible that the existence of the fundamental
Christian data may be necessary in fact to enable the mind to conceive some of
the notions which I have attempted to analyze; but these notions cannot be said to
depend on the data of Christianity, and they do not presuppose it . . . I have
experienced [the development of these ideas] more than twenty years before I
had the remotest thought of becoming a Catholic.” 1
The compatibility of Marcel's vision of the human person with Christianity
was to have a quite profound significance for his own life. It led him in 1929 to
convert to Catholicism, at the age of forty. Marcel had just published a review of
a novel (Souffrance du chrétien) by the French Catholic writer, François Mauriac
(1885–1979). Mauriac recognized that the review appealed to various themes
about human nature and morality that indicated Marcel's familiarity with and
acceptance of important Catholic themes concerning forgiveness, moral character
and the religious justification of the moral order. After Mauriac read the review
he wrote to Marcel and explicitly asked him whether he ought not to join the
Catholic Church. He had picked a fortuitous time to write to Marcel, who records
that he was at this point in his life enjoying “a period of calm and equilibrium,”
leading him to treat Mauriac's request as prophetic, saying “he was but a
spokesman and the call came from much higher up.” 2 It was as though a more
than human voice was questioning him and asking him if he could “really
persevere indefinitely in that equivocal position of yours?” 3 It was as if the voice
said to him: “Is it even honest to continue to think and to speak like someone
who believes in the faith of others and who is convinced that this faith is
everything but illusion, but who nevertheless does not resolve to take it unto
himself? Is there not a sort of equivocation here that must be definitively
dispelled; is it not like a leap before which you are obliged to decide?” 4 He
decided that he could only reply to this last question with an assent. And it is
important to point out, but not at all surprising, that his conversion did not
significantly change his philosophy, although it did cause him to explore further
the role of the transcendent in his work overall. In particular, he became very
interested in the ways that ordinary human experiences, especially moral exp-
eriences, call forth the realm of the transcendent in human life. He also became
interested in the objective nature of such knowledge, and how the philosopher
could reveal its objectivity. We saw in the last chapter how Marcel attempts to
ground the objectivity of knowledge in general. In this chapter, we shall continue
this theme, paying special attention to the recondite areas of moral knowledge,
and knowledge of the human relationship to the transcendent.
During this time Marcel did not hold a formal third-level position as a
philosopher, but rather worked as a lecturer, reviewer, playwright and drama, and
music critic. He eschewed the label of “professional philosopher,” but was still
very active in the French intellectual scene where he knew and frequently met
other luminaries of the time such as Jacques Maritain, Jean Paul Sartre, Charles
Du Bos (1882–1939), and Jean Wahl (1888–1974). In fact, a group of phil-
osophers used to meet regularly at Marcel's house in Paris to discuss philosophy.
This group included Paul Ricoeur, Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986), and
Nicolas Berdyaev (1874–1948), in addition to the philosophers already ment-
ioned. As a result, Marcel had much more of an influence on these philosophers
than is generally supposed. Marcel was often the theistic voice in these dis-
cussions, challenging some of the more secular tendencies of Sartre, for example,
though he has observed that, although there was good will all round, and the
discussions were fruitful, there was usually little meeting of minds!
Although Marcel was a fairly trenchant critic of Sartrean existentialism
(with which the meaning of “existentialism” has, erroneously, come to be ident-
ified), he is nevertheless clearly an existentialist in two crucial senses. First, he
accepts that philosophical inquiry must begin with human experience, that is,
with the concrete lived experience of the individual human subject in the world.
Marcel believes that we can identify by means of the descriptive method of
phenomenology (first proposed by Edmund Husserl) the philosophical structure
of human experience, and probe the implications of this structure for other issues,
such as the nature of knowledge, human relationships, and moral behavior.
Second, Marcel (unlike Sartre) does not believe that “existence precedes ess-
ence,” a phrase which is often taken by many to be a kind of definition of exist-
entialism. But the notion that existence precedes essence, in Sartre's sense, only
makes sense within an atheistic existentialism, such as that of Sartre or perhaps
Secondary Reflection, Ethics and the Transcendent 55
Heidegger (though he denied this), or José Ortega y Gasset (1883–1955). In his

well-known essay “Existentialism is a Humanism,” Sartre had defined exis-
tentialists (in whose number he explicitly includes Marcel) as holding that
“existence precedes essence, or, if you prefer, that subjectivity must be the
starting point.” 5 However, Sartre is mistaken in thinking that these alternatives
are the same, for Marcel accepts that subjectivity must be the starting point for
philosophical inquiry but he does not accept that existence precedes essence.
Marcel points this out when he notes that Heidegger also rejected the idea that
existence precedes essence, and comments that this was an idea “that I, for my
part, have never admitted as such.” 6 Toward the end of his life, Marcel more or
less broke with Sartre completely, mainly over ethical questions. As we shall see,
Marcel explicitly bases his Christian view of the person—and its implications for
human relationships, ethics and the transcendent—on the view that essence
precedes existence. Our focus in what follows will be primarily on his approach
to ethics, with some discussion of his approach to the realm of the transcendent
also (a theme that we will further develop in chapter 5).
Marcel did little direct writing on either religious belief or on moral phil-
osophy in general, or on specific ethical problems, yet his work is deeply ethical
and is very much concerned with correct ethical behavior. Indeed, from one point
of view, the whole of his thought is a sustained discussion on how to live
ethically in a world that is making it increasingly difficult to do so. Examining
his philosophy from the point of view of ethics is very rewarding, and one of the
best ways in which to approach Marcel. The implications of Marcel's view of the
human person are revealed by him—as they are for many existentialists and
phenomenologists—in phenomenological descriptions of the intentional struct-
ures of moral agency, descriptions grounded in human experience rather than in a
logical analysis (in terms of rules and regulations) of how an authentic self would
behave in specific situations. Marcel agrees with many who hold that if one takes
care of one's character, the specific moral issues will take care of themselves, a
major theme, of course, of Aristotle's (384–322 BC) ethics. But if one neglects
one's moral character (or from the philosophical point of view if one mis-
describes or completely misses the intentional structures of moral agency), then a
logical analysis of moral situations, moral rules, and moral concepts will be of
little value in one's life (even though it might have value from the point of view
of contributing to one's intellectual understanding of a particular issue).
2. Secondary Reflection and the Realm of Mystery
As we noted in earlier chapters, Marcel's problem with the realm of conceptual

knowledge is that it is unable to give an adequate account of what he calls the
“being-in-a-situation,” or what I call the “situated involvement,” of the subject in
his or her world. We noted in chapter 2 that the subject is for Marcel fund-
amentally an embodied being-in-a-situation, and is not solely a thinking or
knowing subject. This analysis leads Marcel to reflect further on the nature of
reflection itself.
Reflection, according to Marcel, is “nothing other than attention” 7 to our
pre-reflective lived experiences, which are habitual and ontologically primary.
However, it is possible to distinguish between primary and secondary reflection.
According to Marcel, “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.” 8 As noted in
chapter 3, primary reflection is “ordinary,” everyday reflection, which employs
conceptual generalizations, abstractions, and an appeal to what is universal and
verifiable. This kind of reflection aims at abstracting from our everyday situation,
and seeks “public” concepts that are accessible to everyone in the same way
regardless of their actual “situated involvement” in existence. This type of
reflection typically deals with problems of various kinds that confront human
beings in the course of their everyday lives. A “problem,” as Marcel understands
the term, is a project that requires a solution that is available for everybody. 9 A
problem presupposes a community of inquiry in which the problem can be
publicly formulated, discussed, and solved. In order to set up a “problem,” it is
necessary to perform an act of conceptual abstraction, abstraction from our
ordinary, everyday way of living. Suppose, for example, that a man is walking in
the woods, lost in thought, when he suddenly hears a noise. In this instance, the
individual will “abstract” from, or stand back from, his “situated involvement” of
walking in the woods, and will focus on the “problem” presented, that is, on the
woods themselves and this particular noise as “objects.” Perhaps the man will
listen further and hear voices, and conclude that there is a group of people
nearby, who are the source of the noise. This “problem,” however, is one that
could, in principle, be identified and solved by any person. Primary reflection is,
therefore, the means by which it is possible for the community of human beings
to collectively formulate and discuss problems, and to attempt to arrive at
solutions to them. Characterized in this way, primary reflection is obviously a
very important feature of the ontological structure of human beings, a fact that
Marcel does not wish to deny, and he does acknowledge also that “experience
cannot fail to transform itself into reflection.” 10 (Indeed, he has no real problem
with primary reflection in itself; his problem is with those philosophers who want
to make it the paradigm way of obtaining knowledge.)
Yet the level of primary reflection is a level where human beings do obtain
objective knowledge. This is because the concepts employed at the theoretical
level are objective because they represent essential features of the objects of
experience (at an abstract level) as they really are in the objects, and second,
these essential features are also objective in the crucial sense that everyone
understands them in the same way. So, to continue with our example of the man
walking in the woods and hearing a noise, his (and indeed everybody's)
conceptual analysis of this problem will involve concepts which adequately
represent essential features of the object in question as they really are, for
example, the type of noise it is, the loudness of the noise, the direction it came
from, its significance in that context, etc. Also, another passerby in the woods
(and indeed anybody who contemplates the object) will understand conceptually
these features exactly as the first man did. This latter kind of knowledge, as we
explained in detail in chapter 3, is objective knowledge in the usual under-
standing of that term.
It is a mistake, however, to move on from this analysis to the conclusion
that all human knowledge is to be understood in this way. For Marcel argues that
primary reflection, understood in his sense, cannot give a satisfactory account of
the actual “situated involvement” of the individual in his or her particular sit-
uation in the world, nor should it be required to. What this means is that there can
be no “scientific” or “theoretical” account of human life in its fullness. This
fundamental involvement of human beings in the world brings us again to one of
Marcel's best known themes, the realm of mystery. Marcel holds that the sense of
mystery has a quite revelatory role, a role that he tries to restore to philosophy,
and as Ralph McInerny (1929–) notes, “If he had done nothing else, his success
in this matter would constitute a major contribution to philosophy.” 11 The realm
of mystery, for Marcel, is a realm where the distinction between subject and
object breaks down: “A mystery is something in which I am myself involved, and
it can therefore only be thought of as a sphere where the distinction between
subject and object, between what is in me and what is before me, loses its
meaning and its initial validity.” 12 The most basic level of human existence,
being-in-a-situation, or situated involvement, is the level at which the subject is
immersed in a context, a level where the subject does not experience “objects”
(in the abstract sense of “object”). This realm of human existence is best
described as “mysterious,” from the philosophical point of view, because it
cannot be fully captured and presented in concepts. It is even difficult to reveal or
evoke in phenomenological descriptions. Many human experiences are “myst-
erious” because they intimately involve the questioner in such a way that the
meaning of the experience cannot be fully conveyed by means of abstract
conceptual thinking, that is, by cutting the individual subject off from the
experience. This would include experiences of fidelity, inter-personal relation-
ships, religious experiences, and experiences involving ethical responses to
human beings and situations. Yet Marcel is arguing that this realm of being is
still objectively real, and that it can be revealed to some extent in conceptual
knowledge, especially through philosophy, 13 which is what he is doing in his
own work. 14 This brings us to the notion of secondary reflection.
The above analysis of human experiences prompts the following question:
if the realm of mystery is non-conceptual and evades conceptual knowledge in a
significant sense, how is it known? Marcel introduces the complex notion of
secondary reflection, or of non-conceptual knowledge, to address this matter.
This notion is one of Marcel's most difficult concepts, and resists easy descript-
ion. Here is one of his clearer statements about how secondary reflection helps us
recover the realm of mystery:
The recognition of mystery, on the other hand, is an essentially positive

act of the mind, the supremely positive act in virtue of which all
positivity may perhaps be strictly defined. In this sphere everything
seems to go on as if I found myself acting on an intuition which I
possess without immediately knowing myself to possess it—an intuition
which cannot be, strictly speaking, self-conscious and which can grasp
itself only through the modes of experience in which its image is
reflected, and which it lights up by being thus reflected in them. The
essential metaphysical step would then consist in a reflection upon this
reflection. By means of this, thought stretches out toward the recovery
of an intuition which otherwise loses itself in proportion as it is
exercised. 15
This is a very profound statement by Marcel of one of the most important notions
in his philosophy, a notion to which Marcel scholars have given much attention.
Kenneth Gallagher has argued that secondary reflection is a real form of reflect-
ion but that it is “illuminated” in some way by the mystery of being. David
Appelbaum has argued that it is a pre-reflective type of consciousness, which
involves sensation and embodiment. As we will see in a moment, I think Apple-
baum has the emphasis in the wrong place in his analysis of secondary reflection.
Others have said that the notion of “intuition” in Marcel's thought provides an
insight into how secondary reflection works, while Thomas Busch has suggested
that it is a philosophical type of reflection that allows us to at least partially exp-
ress those areas of experience that are beyond ordinary conceptual description.
Tom Michaud, in a very insightful analysis, has argued that the key to un-
derstanding secondary reflection is its correlation with Marcel's problem/
mystery distinction. Secondary reflection, according to Michaud, is “a reflection
on an intuitive encounter with mystery: a philosophical reflection which 'lives
off' a blinded and mute intuition of a mystery of existence and which can
illumine and articulate such an intuition to express a philosophically intelligible
and satisfying account of the nature of the mystery.” 16 Michaud's analysis draws
attention to the fact that secondary reflection helps us to move beyond primary
reflection, and provides us with some reflective insight into those experiences
ultimately beyond primary reflection; he also points out that secondary reflection
is not only intelligible, but satisfying, at least to the extent that we can identify
the experiences, recognize their value, and their ultimate inaccessibility to
primary reflection. Secondary refection, therefore, allows us to avoid collapsing
into an area of total mystery, and so allows us to avoid irrationalism and
mysticism.
So, despite Applebaum's view, secondary reflection does not seem to be
pre-reflective, but is more post-reflective (if “reflective” here refers to ordinary

reflection, that is, primary reflection). According to Marcel, secondary reflection
helps us to recover those experiences that are beyond primary reflection. Yet he
also describes it as a “second reflection” on primary reflection. 17 So I think the
most accurate characterization of the concept is that secondary reflection can be
understood as both the act of critical reflection on primary reflection, and the
process of recovery of the “mysteries of being.” Therefore, I suggest that
secondary reflection is best characterized in the following way: secondary ref-
lection begins as the act of critical reflection (a “second” reflection) on ordinary
conceptual thinking (primary reflection). This “second” or critical reflection
enables the philosopher to discover that the categories of primary reflection are
not adequate to provide a true account of the nature of the self, or of the self's
most profound experiences. Here secondary reflection involves ordinary
reflection, but with the crucial difference that, unlike ordinary reflection, it is a
critical reflection directed at the nature of thought itself. 18
This first move of secondary reflection then progresses by bringing the
human subject out of the realm of the conceptual into the realm of actual
experience. Marcel suggests that the act of secondary reflection culminates in a
realization, or discovery, or in an assurance of the realm of mystery, and moti-
vates human actions appropriate to this realm. What is this discovery or
assurance? It is a kind of intuitive grasp or experiential insight into various
experiences which are non-conceptual, and which conceptual knowledge can
never fully express. “Secondary reflection” is a general term that refers to both
the act of critical reflection on primary reflection, and the realization or ass-
urance of the realm of mystery beyond primary reflection. Since secondary
reflection has this dual meaning, it is easy to understand why the term has often
been misleading, a point that Marcel himself has recognized. 19
It is necessary to illustrate this notion further with a concrete example. Let
us consider the experience of fidelity, from the many examples Marcel discusses
throughout his work. Marcel's basic point about the experience of fidelity is that
a complete and precise conceptual analysis of the meaning of the experience of
fidelity is not possible. If we try to describe conceptually the meaning of fidelity,
we fail because we keep running into the problem of trying to state what
conditions would be necessary for an act to be an act of fidelity, but the problem
is that fidelity appears to have an unconditional, experiential element to it, an
element that is impossible to describe completely in conceptual terms. When we
try to state necessary conditions for fidelity, the task becomes impossible because
we can readily imagine a new case of fidelity that does not satisfy the necessary
conditions—that is, we recognize the inadequacy of the description and the con-
ditions in the face of the actual experience. We might, for example, think that one
basic necessary condition is that the person we wish to be faithful to must at least
be a living person, but Marcel believes that we can easily imagine cases where
we should show fidelity to a lost loved one. Yet despite these conceptual diff-
iculties, he holds that we can recognize and appreciate the experience of fidelity
quite easily when we are in the presence of fidelity, and we also find it quite easy
to recognize whether a particular act was a true act of fidelity or not. (We shall
return to this fascinating example in more detail in chapter 5.)
The concept of secondary reflection brings us to a new dimension, a
dimension to which secondary reflection allows us access, the realm of being, or
the realm of the unity of experience. This realm, as we have seen, cannot be
deduced in the logical sense from the structure of thought, 20 and, as Marcel
points out, this realm is itself the guide (the “intuition”) of reflective thought. 21
So Marcel holds that conceptual knowledge is a vital aspect of experience, but as
philosophers we must identify its place and its limits. We must also be aware of
the possibility of non-conceptual knowledge, and he suggests that the ident-
ification and elucidation of this realm belongs to philosophy. It is to be achieved
by means of phenomenological descriptions in which necessary connections are
discovered in the realm of mystery.
We have seen above that Marcel develops the view that human beings are
fundamentally beings-in-situations first, and then thinking or reflective beings
second. We have also seen that in developing a critique of the obsession with
primary reflection (with the world of “having)” he does not mean to advocate any
kind of relativism, or to hold that conceptual knowledge is not important; he only
wishes to illustrate where it fits into the analysis of the human subject, and to
point out that it is important not to overstate its range or its value. All of this has
important implications for our understanding of the realms of the ethical and of
the transcendent.
3. Ethics and the Transcendent
Marcel, like many of the existentialists, would reject the fact/value distinction in
ethical analysis. This distinction, which can be traced back to David Hume's
(1711–1776) discussion of the is/ought problem, became crucial in the work of
A.J. Ayer (1910–1989), C.L. Stevenson (1908–1979), and R.M. Hare (1919–
2002), and later became very influential within analytic philosophy in general
(although it should be noted that several philosophers within the analytic
tradition had little use for the fact/value distinction, including G.E.M Anscombe
{1919–2001}.) 22 Yet Marcel and many of the existentialists reject it as a
fundamentally flawed way of approaching moral philosophy. This is because the
separation of human existence into a realm of “facts,” and then the quest to
deduce a realm of “values” from these facts, with which to judge these facts (and
therefore regulate human behavior) is entirely artificial. The distinction emerges
from a failure to recognize an essential point about the nature of human
existence—that it is impossible for it to be indifferent to value from the outset.
Marcel believes that being, to use his special term for the plenitude of human
existence, is endowed with value by virtue of its very existence, and can have no
ethical significance if this is not so. We cannot first have existence entirely
devoid of value, and then “derive” value from some independent source and add
it to being.
Marcel does agree that it is possible to refuse to recognize the fact that
being has value, which is really to refuse to recognize the true nature of human
beings. But the point here is that this is a refusal, and not a sincerely held result
arrived at by means of a philosophical analysis of the evidence. 23 There is a
depth to reality that a certain type of cynicism or nihilism can refuse to recog-
nize, for a variety of reasons. 24 To refuse to recognize the value of being for
Marcel means that we withdraw from the intersubjective nature of human
relations, and the behavior appropriate to these relations, and focus instead on
one's self as the center of meaning and value. We are indeed free to refuse, and
nobody can really force us into the path of being and truth. Yet we do have a
need for being, according to Marcel, a need for fullness and plenitude in our
relations with others, yet “the ontological need…of being can deny itself.” 25 His
work involves an attempt to recover this need, or reawaken the awareness of this
intuition of the realm of “situated involvement,” and establish its role as the
inspiration and guide of thought.
There is a crucial difference between Marcel's approach to human exis-
tence and what might be described as a modern, secularist, evolution-based
approach. Marcel insists on something that the modern approach has difficulty
accepting: that human existence by its very nature is already endowed with value.
Secularist versions of modernism have special difficulty with this, not so much
because they want to deny it (which they do), but because modern secularists
cannot see a way to include an underlying realm of value in their overall account
of reality, including human reality. If a person is committed to the worldview that
holds that the universe has no ultimate design or purpose to it, that human life
was a random accident, due purely to the blind forces of physics operating by
means of the evolutionary process, it is hard to see how he or she could arrive at
any theory of morality from such a view. The problem is not how can we be
inspired to live morally based on this value-less view of human existence and the
universe, but how can we justify our moral theory based on this view? As Charles
Taliaferro has succinctly put it, “In a theistic cosmos, values lie at the heart of
reality, whereas for most [secularists] values are emergent, coming into being
from evolutionary processes that are themselves neither inherently good or
bad.” 26 These two fundamentally different ways of understanding reality are
often at the heart of many disputes today, both on moral issues and other topics,
and are often at the heart of some contemporary objections to Marcel's position.
Marcel has a striking metaphor to describe how reality is already endowed
with value: “For what we call values are perhaps only a kind of refraction of
reality, like the rainbow colors that emerge from a prism when white light is
passed through it.” 27 He pushes this analysis further to suggest that this exp-
erience of the value-laden nature of being also gives us an insight into the
transcendent nature of human existence. The idea here is that there is a trans-
cendent aspect to human existence because it is already endowed with value,
which no individual brought to it, or created, but which we recognize, and which
will exist after we are gone. This view of transcendence does not emphasize
transcendence understood in the sense of being the result of an objective
demonstration (though Marcel does not deny this sense either), but rather in the
sense that it is something we can recognize in our own experience. In this sense,
Marcel suggests that perhaps the experience of transcendence should not be
primarily understood as something which comes from outside us, although it
clearly has an independence from any one individual. But transcendence can also
be understood as a kind of reaching out of myself toward the intersubjective
nature of existence, a reaching out which is an essential part of the human
condition, and without which we are not fulfilled. For Marcel, this experience of
transcendence can eventually lead to the affirmation of God (the subject of
chapter 5).
Marcel next introduces his well-known notion of disponibilité (usually
translated as “availability” in English), a key ethical notion in his work. If the
above analysis of human existence sets up the foundation for Marcel's approach
to ethics, then the notion of availability can be seen as a more practical statement
of how our actual behavior toward other human beings is to be conducted. The
notion of disponibilité is meant to convey the idea of a kind of “spiritual
availability” which we should have toward other human beings. 28 It is the idea
that we should approach other human beings with an openness and humility; we
should not be aloof or egocentric, or obsessed with our own affairs. It is to
approach other people and events with an attitude that has plenty of “give” in it.
On the other hand unavailability (indisponibilité), says Marcel, is a “hardening of
the categories in accordance with which we conceive and evaluate the world.” 29
Modern society, with its emphasis on primary reflection, scientism and nat-
uralism, has smothered disponibilité, ushering in a new kind of alienation (a
theme of several of Marcel's plays). Marcel believes we need a reawakening of
all that is spiritual in humanity, including our sense of the transcendent, both in
inter-personal relationships and in our relationship with God.
He introduces the notion of presence as a useful metaphor to convey this
point:
It is an undeniable fact, though it is hard to describe in intelligible terms,

that there are some people who reveal themselves as “present” —that is
to say, at our disposal—when we are in pain or in need . . . while there
are other people who do not give us this feeling, however great is their
goodwill. It should be noted at once that the distinction between
presence and absence is not at all the same as that between attention
and distraction . . . there is a way of listening which is a way of giving,
and another way of listening which is a way of refusing, or refusing
oneself . . . . 30
He gives an intriguing example of how I can be present to a person who is half

way across the world from me, and yet not be present to a person who is in the
same room as me! He is undoubtedly right about this, yet it is hard to present this
truth as the result of an objective demonstration. As he puts it, “though nobody
would attempt to deny that we do have such experiences, it is very difficult to
express in words, and we should ask ourselves why.” 31 It is, therefore, a good
illustration of what Marcel means by saying that, although we cannot demon-
strate truths like this in the sense of “demonstrate” required by primary
reflection, we can nevertheless “know” such truths in our own experience; they
bring with them an assurance which gives certainty, even if they are not
objectively demonstrable. This is not to reject the category of objective dem-
onstration, of course, but simply to point out that it is not quite appropriate here
and, if insisted upon or championed as the paradigm way to knowledge, then
something fundamental about human existence will be lost.
Another more helpful way to understand Marcel's notion of disponibilité is
in terms of Buber's distinction between I-It and I-Thou relations, an analysis of
human relations which Marcel wholeheartedly endorses. 32 (We will consider
Marcel’s thought in relation to Buber’s in more detail in chapter 9.) The I-Thou
relation is spoken with our whole being, according to Buber; it involves a
dialogue with the other, in which I am a participant and not merely a spectator.
Such relations involve risk and sacrifice, they are the basis of true freedom, and
they lead to the fulfillment of the human person. As K.R. Hanley astutely puts it:
“An incitement to create is always the distinctive mark of such gifted moments of
presence.” 33 We can refuse these relations as we said earlier, and the modern
world is becoming increasingly dominated by I-It relationships, yet the phen-
omenological analysis of I-Thou relations accurately captures the inexpressible
depth of these relationships.
This depth of human relationships can be clearly seen in the experience of
fidelity which is the basis of so many of our human relationships, from simple
promise-making, to friendships, to marriage vows, to a commitment to general
welfare of our fellow human beings. This experience evokes in us a sense of an
eternal, timeless, unchangeable value, to which the individual is faithful. Its value
is so high that it demands of us an unconditional, rather than a conditional,
commitment. It is something that comes to us from outside, whose value we
recognize and acknowledge in our commitment. In this sense, Marcel argues that
values are not created, and he is critical of Sartre's position on this issue. We see
the truth of this in our own experiences of unconditional commitments, and also
in the fact that where values are created there are severe problems with
maintaining the commitment and in justifying it logically. As he puts it: “If I
examine myself honestly . . . I find that I do not 'choose' my values at all, but that
I recognize them and then posit my actions in accordance or in contradiction with
these values.” 34 Marcel goes on to argue that in this way we can easily come to
regard reality as a gift, which is ultimately to be trusted, and which is the basis of
the hope which undergrids human life (and which rejects despair and nihilism). 35
The world of disponibilité is the complete opposite to the world of I-It, of
primary reflection, which, we have seen, is the world of abstraction, mani-
pulation, possession, a world which seeks solutions to universal, public problems
of various sorts. Marcel argues that the problem with the modern attitude is that it
is more and more dominated by primary reflection; increasingly everything in the
modern world must come under this realm, including the human subject, so that
the subject simply becomes another object that needs to be analyzed in the way
all objects are analyzed. He describes the modern world as a “broken world” (le
monde cassé) to reflect the fact that we are losing the realm of being and avai-
lability, upon which authentic human relationships and the spirit of trans-
cendence are founded. “Therein lies the reason,” he argues, “that we may appear
to have entered into the age of despair: we have not ceased believing in
techniques, that is, envisioning reality as an ensemble of problems, and yet, at the
same time, the global bankruptcy of techniques as a whole is as clearly
discernable as are its partial successes.” 36 Elsewhere he notes that: “It can never
be too strongly emphasized that the crisis which Western man is undergoing
today is a metaphysical one; [our] sense of disquiet . . . rises from the very depth
of man's being.” 37
At this point Marcel is well aware that many people working through his
view will refuse to go with him all the way, right to a recognition of those
experiences that are beyond primary reflection, and which reveal to us its place
and limits (which is, of course, a crucial philosophical point that any honest
philosopher must be interested in revealing). What if our participant in discussion
refuses to recognize the realm of being and the fact that being and value are
inseparable, or the philosophical and ethical significance of various other
experiences (for example, fidelity) that Marcel describes? What if, even after
going (systematically) through the essential points in Marcel's phenomenological
project, our participant still refuses to appreciate what Marcel is referring to? At
this point, there is little more one can do. Here is William James on the same
issue: “The minds of some of you, I know, will absolutely refuse to do so, refuse
to think in non-conceptualized terms. I myself absolutely refused to do so for
years . . . No words of mine will probably convert you, for words can be the
names only of concepts . . . I must leave life to teach the lesson.” 38 Marcel
agrees, but he thinks that philosophy, and also literature and drama, can help in
this regard as well. Human beings, for Marcel, are dislocated, especially in
contemporary culture, cut off for the most part from those experiences which
most give expression to their fundamental natures. This is because our
preoccupation with abstraction—with our desire to master and control reality in
terms of the categories of primary reflection—cuts us off from who we are:
beings-in-situations-with-others. Nowhere, Marcel points out forcefully, is this
more obvious than in the modern world of scientific advancement and bur-
eaucratic control, where the subject is constantly being reduced to a functionary
role, one of Marcel's main worries in his critique of the rise of mass society.
4. Marcel and “Moral Philosophy”
I would like to conclude this discussion of the implications of Marcel's thought

for the areas of ethics and the transcendent by briefly considering how his
approach contrasts with the approach to ethics found in twentieth century
analytic philosophy. It will be quite helpful to contrast Marcel's approach with
that of the analytic approach as a way of further clarifying his view. Marcel
nowhere systematically discusses this topic, but nevertheless it is possible to be
reasonably sure of the line he would take, given all we have shown above. The
first point of contrast between Marcel's view and the analytic approach is that the
latter has no room for the realm of mystery in its analyses, and is not sympathetic
(to put it mildly) to the role that phenomenological descriptions of human
experience can play in our understanding of ethical behavior. Analytic
philosophy has struggled greatly with the whole area of moral philosophy,
specifically with the attempt to justify ethics given the enlightenment
assumptions of most analytic philosophers. These assumptions include the fact
that it is not possible to derive an “ought” from an “is,” that the universe has no
larger purpose or plan behind it, that there is nothing necessary about human
nature (and therefore about human values), as well as an obsession with
epistemological and moral relativism, and a hostility toward religion and
religious morality. These are the trends which influence modern moral
philosophy, and while there is a whole industry in the area of moral philosophy,
especially in North America, there is little by way of progress being made on
moral questions. As a result, moral philosophy—within the movement of analytic
philosophy—is often marginalized by those in other disciplines, who think that
they can do just as good a job in ethics as those trained in philosophy. Certainly
few people would think of consulting a moral philosopher today if they were
faced with a moral dilemma!
Analytic philosophers generally hold that all ethical reflection must be
purely conceptual, and is all the better for not appealing to our ordinary exp-
erience (except perhaps to confirm our intuitions concerning various examples
used in the analyses). But no personal appeal is appropriate for analytic
philosophers, like, for example, Marcel's appeal to the personal experience of the
philosopher in his phenomenological analysis of the transcendental nature of
value. Analytic philosophers might object to Marcel's notion of mystery by
saying that if it is not possible to objectify the realm of ordinary experience (or of
non-conceptual knowledge), then how can we know it? More generally, what this
objection is really saying is that if we cannot fully objectify an area of human
experience, then we cannot really know anything about it at all. This is one of the
main difficulties an analytic philosopher would raise about Marcel's position. I

believe Marcel would reply to this line of reasoning in the following way.
In order to describe experiences, which—being experiences—are fund-
amentally non-conceptual, we require conceptual knowledge. To put it more
accurately, we can employ conceptual knowledge to inadequately describe or
incompletely conceptualize certain experiences which must ultimately be exper-
ienced to be fully known, “known,” that is, at a level which is beyond the
distinction between the self and the concept it grasps. Marcel is attempting such a
description of non-conceptual knowledge in his philosophical work. Therefore,
he does not believe that this is a totally private realm, to which no objective,
collective access is possible. Marcel also illustrates in his plays that it is in
dramatic work that we best see the “mysteries of being” manifested, that is,
manifested at a level beyond mere thinking. In this way, art complements
philosophy in attempting to understand and communicate some insight into the
nature of the knowledge which is non-conceptual. From the point of view of
logic, Marcel is pointing out that it is fallacious to claim that the realm of
mystery must be fully private if it cannot be made fully objective, and, even more
important, that it can have no philosophical or epistemological significance
unless it can be made fully objective.
Marcel would be critical of the abstract analysis of ethical situations and
concepts that is typical of analytic philosophy. Such analyses would be prob-
lematic on two fronts. In the first place, they are in the realm of problems, the
realm of primary reflection, and so would be cut off from the “situated involve-
ment” of the individual subject who is doing the analyzing. Such analyses could
have, at very best, a limited role in ethical reflection. In the second place, Marcel
has been arguing for the view that it is the type of person one is which will
determine how one behaves in ethical situations, not an abstract analysis which
one has performed independently of one's situation (though he would not deny, I
think, that an abstract analysis could have some value). As we saw above in the
case of fidelity, the type of person one is—whether one operates on the I-Thou
level when this is appropriate, or whether one's life is primarily dominated by the
I-It attitude—will determine how one reacts in various cases which call forth
fidelity, such as making promises to a friend, marital vows, etc. Further, the
essential experience which provides the motivation for, and which ultimately
gives meaning to, the behavior, is inexpressible in conceptual terms. This pos-
ition ties in, of course, with Marcel's belief in human nature, which supports an
objective account of behavior appropriate to human relationships. It also ties in
with an Aristotelian/Thomistic view of ethics, although Marcel does not discuss
this link. But his appeal to the fact that it is the type of person one is that will be
decisive in ethical situations, not how one analyzes the situation, is clearly evoc-
ative of the notion of character formation by means of habitual virtuous activity
that is at the heart of traditional ethics.
The analytic philosopher might respond to this general line of argument by
insisting that an abstract analysis can have great value because it can help us
better understand particular ethical problems, can show whether we are incon-
sistent in our various ethical beliefs, can clear up ethical confusions, and surely
this would help us make better moral decisions? In addition, this kind of under-
standing would contribute to our overall development as a person, in that it
would lead to a more mature worldview, which would also affect our ethical
behavior for the better. Marcel is too dismissive, the analytic philosopher might
suggest, of the value of this type of analysis. Nevertheless, we can see how
Marcel's view could accommodate to some extent this feature of analytic ethics,
yet his view also moves beyond it in allowing a role for mystery, which the
analytic approach denies. By dismissing the realm of mystery, and insisting that
the category of primary reflection is the only way to knowledge, analytic
philosophers are losing something essential to human existence. In addition, it is
very important to consider, as Marcel suggests, whether and to what extent the
abstract analysis of ethical concepts and situations can really help us either in
improving our moral behavior, or even in furthering our understanding of ethics
in general. Analytic philosophy has not been very successful in these tasks, as
Alasdair MacIntyre has pointed out. 39
This leads to our concluding point. Marcel would reject the view of the self
that is at the background of much of contemporary analytic philosophy—the
view that regards the self as essentially an autonomous center of rationality,
which then chooses via the social contract to enter into intersubjective,
community relations. Such a view for Marcel is misguided. It is based on a desire
for mastery and on a lack of openness which is the mark of primary reflection
and the I-It realm. Of course, Marcel disagrees with most of the other
existentialists too about the nature of the self. He believes, as we've seen, that
Sartre's view is too nihilistic, and makes intersubjectivity impossible in favor of
pure subjectivity. Marcel offers a richer alternative to both the analytic approach
and the atheistic existentialist approach, and provides a very solid foundation for
an objective approach to ethics and the realm of the transcendent from within the
continental tradition in philosophy.
Five
RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE, AND THE

AFFIRMATION OF GOD
We saw in earlier chapters how Marcel's identification of those human exp-

eriences that are beyond the range of primary reflection, such as the exper-
ience of fidelity, lead him in the general direction of the transcendent. Indeed,
Marcel's unique development of the relationship between reflection and exp-
erience opens up the whole realm of the transcendent for him in a way that
escapes most other philosophers working in the same tradition. His approach
leads him to present what I regard as a quite unique approach to the question
of the existence of God. It is an existentialist approach, to be sure, yet it is not
simply based on a faith commitment to God, as we find for example in Kier-
kegaard, whose view emphasizes the affective and volitional nature of our rel-
ationship with God at the expense, many would argue, of any rational
approach to the question. There is a clear rational structure to Marcel's app-
roach to the topic of God and religious experience, and it will be our aim to
bring out this structure in this chapter.
Although often neglected, at least within the discipline of philosophy of
religion, there are a number of good reasons for paying careful attention to
Marcel's ideas on the matter of God's existence. First, his philosophy is stud-
ied by many thinkers precisely because of its profound implications for a phil-
osophical approach to religious belief. 1 In fact, some regard Marcel's
philosophical writings on religious belief as perhaps his most profound
contribution to philosophy. According to Seymour Cain (1914–), “From the
beginning of his philosophical career, Marcel's main interest has been the
interpretation of religious experience, that is, of the relation between man and
ultimate reality.” 2 Second, it seems that Marcel's account of the human
subject does have significant implications for traditional philosophy of rel-
igion, and when we say “traditional” we are referring, in particular, to the
traditional arguments for the existence of God, and, more generally, to the
issue of the nature of an affirmation of God. Third, Marcel's position has
some affinity with recent work in Anglo-American philosophy of religion,
especially work on the argument from religious experience in the Reformed
tradition of philosophy of religion. In recent times, Alvin Plantinga (1932–),
Nicholas Wolterstorff (1932–), William Alston (1921–), and John Hick
(1922–) have all offered modern versions of the argument for the existence of
God based on religious experience. I will suggest later that the general
position of these philosophers can be advanced by appeal to the work of
Marcel. This in itself would be an important conclusion, given the respect for
and influence of the Reformed approach in current philosophy of religion. In
what follows, I will focus on: (1) Marcel's understanding of what a rational
argument would entail, and whether he believes that the existence of God
could be defended by means of rational arguments; (2) Marcel's account of
how the individual subject can arrive at an affirmation of God; (3) whether or
not his own approach could be regarded as a rational argument; and (4) how
his position offers an advance upon the position of the Reformed epistem-
ologists.
1. Reflection, Experience and God
Philosophers of religion have always been interested in “proofs” for the exist-
ence of God, and many of the arguments in the history of the discipline, such
as the cosmological and design arguments, have often been presented by
various thinkers as “proofs.” More recently, philosophers have been more
modest in what they claim for arguments for the existence of God. Today, a
philosopher of religion is more likely to say that the arguments for the exis-
tence of God show that it is reasonable to believe in God (but may fall short
of a “proof”), and perhaps also that they show that belief in God is more
reasonable than the alternatives. Indeed, the atheist (or today the secularist or
the naturalist) is likely also to make this more modest claim for his or her
arguments. It seems that when we are dealing with the subject matter of
worldviews (concerning the natures of the universe, human beings and mor-
ality, and with what really exists or really is the case), we must settle some of
the time for rationality rather than proof. So although the word “proof” is still
widely used in discussions of the arguments for God's existence, it is usually
with the implication that something less than a scientific-type proof is being
offered.
It is clear from our earlier exposition of Marcel's distinction between
primary and secondary reflection that he would normally regard a rational
argument (say for the existence of God), a proof even, as appropriate only in
the area of primary reflection. This is because a rational argument attempts to
provide a decisive solution to problems of various sorts, and the domain of
primary reflection is the domain of problems. Recall that, for Marcel, a
“problem” occurs when our pre-reflective lived experience, or being-in-a-
situation, throws up a concrete situation which requires our attention (or our
“reflection”), and (primary) reflection is then employed by us in an attempt to
solve the problem. We noted that a crucial feature of the domain of problems
is that any proposed solution to any particular problem must issue from a
detached, disinterested inquiry. If some of the premises of a proof, for
example, relied for their truth upon my personal involvement in existence,
this would obviously constitute a valid objection to the proof (according to the
Religious Experience, and the Affirmation of God 71
domain of primary reflection) by another person who was appraising the

proof. Therefore, the proof must rely only on concepts and on relationships
between concepts, which, by definition, are universal, shareable, public and
disinterested. Only in this way, if at all, can what is required—a universally
demonstrable solution (either deductive or inductive) to our problem—be
attained. Marcel sometimes refers to the experience of evil in human life to
illustrate what he has in mind here. He points out that there is a difference
between thinking of the abstract problem of evil in the world presenting diff-
iculties for the possible existence of an all-good, all-knowing God (a frequent
topic within the discipline of philosophy of religion), and of actually dealing
with the experience of evil in one's own life. His view is that the analysis of
the abstract problem can never fully come to terms with the fact of evil
because the experience of the questioner is excluded by definition. This does
not mean that the abstract analysis is not useful or valuable, but it does mean
that it is inevitably incomplete, and also that it must be handled with care as a
contribution to our overall understanding of evil. 3
This example reminds us of something we saw in earlier chapters: there
is a range of human experiences that is not totally accessible in the realm of
primary reflection. This is because something essential to the nature of the
experiences is lost in the transition from the level of being-in-a-situation to
the level of primary reflection. These experiences include our experience of
our own ordinary, everyday involvement in existence (which gives rise to
what I described in chapter 3 as our particular ideas), our experience of our
embodiment, the relationship of the body to the mind, and the “concrete
approaches” to being: faith, fidelity, hope and love. These latter experiences
occur at the intersubjective level of human experience, and are even further
removed from conceptual knowledge than the basic level of being-in-a-
situation. The reason such experiences cannot be fully objectified, according
to Marcel, is that they are experiences which involve the questioner.
It will be helpful to elaborate briefly on what it means to say that an
experience essentially involves the questioner. For it seems that any inquiry
must in some sense involve the questioner, in so far as an individual carries it
out. However, in a rational argument, or discussion of a problem, the solution
does not necessarily involve the personal and unique experiences of any
particular human subject. This is because the solution is formulated and
presented at the level of abstraction, a level that does not consider or require
the particular “situated involvement” of any particular inquirer. It would be
possible to substitute any other inquirer and still solve the same problem in
the same way. For example, if the sound on my computer was not working, I
might discover that this was because a certain software file was missing. Yet
solving this problem does not require the involvement of my own personal
being-in-a-situation. Anyone could be substituted for me in this example (a
computer technician, for instance), and yet still confront and solve exactly the
same problem in exactly the same way. However, such a substitution is not
possible when the issue concerns the question of the existence of God. 4
According to Marcel, this is one of those questions in human life that
intimately involves the questioner. He gives many examples illustrating why
this is so, and how an individual might come to affirm the existence of God in
their experience. We briefly mentioned the experience of fidelity in the last
chapter, and I would like to return to it here in more detail in order to bring
out more clearly Marcel's approach to the nature of an affirmation of God.
2. The Experience of Fidelity
One of the experiences Marcel turns to often as an example of an experience

beyond conceptual knowledge is the experience of fidelity. In various places,
he describes different experiences of fidelity, such as marital fidelity, making
promises, and a mother's fidelity to her children. 5 The key to understanding
fidelity, according to Marcel, is to recognize that it involves an unconditional
commitment. We can get a glimpse of what this means at the intellectual level
of primary reflection, but we must really experience it to grasp its full
meaning (a meaning that cannot be fully captured in conceptual knowledge).
Describing various experiences of fidelity, which may evoke similar exper-
iences in our own lives, is another way to help us appreciate the nature of this
experience. Indeed, this is Marcel's method for dealing with many of the
concerns in his work. His aim is to evoke a confirming echo in our own lives
of the various experiences and relationships he is describing. Of course, if we
refuse to go with him on this journey, or if we are unable to recognize a con-
firming echo, his arguments may seem elusive to us. Marcel explicitly says at
the end of his first set of Gifford lectures that “it should now be very clear that
a philosophy of this sort is essentially of the nature of a kind of appeal to the
listener or the reader, of a kind of call upon his inner resources. In other
words, such a philosophy could never be completely embodied into a kind of
dogmatic exposition of which the listener or reader would merely have to
grasp the content.” 6
In his phenomenological analysis of promise making, Marcel refers to
the example of promising to make a return visit to a sick friend who is lonely
in the hospital (an action that Kant would classify as a moral obligation).
Marcel holds that it seems futile to try to specify a set of conditions, or
criteria, that a particular action would need to fulfill in order for the
commitment entered into in the promise to be kept. Yet, despite this, we still
look upon the promise as binding. Marcel explains that:
At the basis of this committal, there may be present (a) my desire at

the moment to give him pleasure; (b) the fact that nothing else is att-
racting me at the moment. But it is quite possible that tomorrow,
that is, at the time when I fulfill my commitment, I shall no longer

have the desire, and shall instead be attracted by this interest or that,
which I never dreamed of when I committed myself. I can by no
means commit myself to the continued experience of the desire…For
[the promise] would then become conditional . . . One sees at once
where the commitment is partly unconditional: “whatever my state of
mind, whatever my temper . . . I will come and see you tomorrow.” 7
This leads him to suggest that the commitment involved is an unconditional

commitment. One way perhaps to show this is to try to imagine making a
promise that was based on conditions. While some (rather impersonal) prom-
ises could perhaps still make sense if regarded this way (for example, legal
contracts), promises based on real human relationships could not. It becomes
clear very quickly that these would not really be promises at all if they were
based on conditions. So it becomes necessary to look further at the meaning
of this notion of unconditionality. I cannot be faithful, according to Marcel,
except to my own commitment (that is, to myself), so it seems that “the prob-
lem of commitment logically comes before that of fidelity.” 8
But to whom do I make the commitment? Do I make it to myself, or to
the other person? It seems that it cannot be to myself because this would not
capture the experience of giving that seems essential to making a promise. 9 In
some cases, we can say that the commitment is made to the other person.
Here, that person would appear to have a claim upon me. Yet when we push
the description further, even this explanation is not adequate. For there may
be cases in which the other person does not know they have a claim on me.
This would be the case, for instance, where I have made a promise to a person
without even telling them that I have made it. I can also make a promise to a
person, Marcel suggests, who tries to release me from it; or perhaps to a
person who later dies, and whose death would appear to release me from the
commitment I have made. Yet in all of these cases, Marcel holds, the person
who has made the promise still experiences that the pledge is a commitment,
that they are still under an obligation to fulfill the promise. So in the light of
our description of these various cases, we are nearer but not quite there in
answering our initial question: to whom is the commitment in a promise
made?
Marcel believes that his phenomenological analysis has been pointing in
a religious direction. He concludes that the commitment underlying various
types of promises is best explained if they are understood as being pledged to
an absolute, transcendent reality. According to him, “Unconditionality is the
true sign of God's presence.” 10 This argument can also be extended to the case
of marital fidelity. In this case, the love between a man and a woman is
unconditional, and as unconditional is ultimately grounded in an “Absolute
Thou” (Marcel uses this phrase throughout his work to convey the uncond-
itionality of the commitment). We might also say that the absolute Thou has
unconditional or unqualified or unlimited value, and so is the foundation of all
value. Detailed analysis of these examples of what he sometimes calls “I-
Thou” relations (including our relationship with God) illustrates, according to
Marcel, not only how a person might arrive at an affirmation of God, but why
it would be rational for that person to believe in God on the basis of these
experiences. As he observes in Creative Fidelity: “It seems to me . . . reas-
onable to think that this world is itself rooted in being, hence that it transcends
in every way those localized problems with their similarly localized solutions
which permit the insertion of the technical into things.” 11
Marcel presents the human experience of making and keeping promises
as a way in which a person might come to believe in God. But it is important
to point out that when the believer is affirming the reality of God he is making
an inference on the basis of his own personal experiences. This point has been
expressed well by Clyde Pax: “He is . . . appealing to an ultimate strength
which from within enables him to make the pledge which he knows he could
not make from himself alone.” 12 Given that life is full of temptations, doubts
and challenges, the recognition of an absolute Thou helps the individual to
keep his or her commitments, but it has to be more than this. Given that the
relationship with God is an intersubjective relation, the individual also bel-
ieves that God will help us keep our commitments. In this way, the person
who has such experiences is involved in the question, is involved in the
affirmation of God, and only in so far as he is involved is there an affirmation.
The “objective” existence of God cannot be detached from the believer's exp-
erience and presented as an object of demonstration for everyone. This comes
out in Marcel's phenomenological description of promise keeping. Therefore,
his position is that the affirmation of God can only be attained by an
individual at the level of a being-in-a-situation, or secondary reflection. At the
level of primary reflection, the existence of God cannot be demonstrated,
because (as in our example above of making a promise) the individual must
be genuinely involved in the affirmation, but such genuine involvement is
precluded at the level of abstraction.
I don't think Marcel is saying that this particular experience in isolation
would lead one to an affirmation of God (although this possibility could not
be ruled out in exceptional cases). His view is that many experiences of this
kind—and the realization that these experiences are an essential aspect of
much in life that we value above all else—can lead us to the affirmation of
God. Of course, not everyone who has such experiences necessarily arrives at
an affirmation of God. However, Marcel might suggest that, nevertheless, in
these cases God is still the ultimate ground of such experiences. That is to say,
people who engage in such commitments are implicitly committed to a view
of the world that is grounded in an ultimate reality. His point is that human
beings have a capacity within their experience that requires appeal to a reality
outside the realm of experience in order to be fully explained.
Let us illustrate some of these points further by turning to a second
example, to a brief discussion of Graham Greene's (1904–1991) challenging
novel, The End of the Affair, a novel that illustrates very well Marcel's acc-
ount of fidelity. As readers will recall, The End of the Affair is the story of
Sarah Miles, who begins an affair with the writer Maurice Bendrix, during the
time of the blitz in wartime London. But Sarah begins to question the morality
of the affair, and of her betrayal of her husband, Henry. One night during a
clandestine meeting with Bendrix, a bomb hits the house, and Bendrix is
caught in the rubble. Sarah fears that he has been killed; she falls to her knees
and prays to God, and makes Him a sincere promise that if Bendrix survives,
she will break off the affair. Miraculously, Bendrix does survive. Although
she finds it difficult, Sarah does keep the promise, and over the next few
months, she gradually becomes more and more open to the transcendent and
the possibility that God exists. However, tragedy strikes when she dies soon
after of poor health. The rest of the novel is an exploration of the possibility
of religious belief in a secular environment, and explores questions of love,
belief, doubt and rebellion, as we will see.
I believe this particular novel of Greene's is quite Marcelian because it
exemplifies many of Marcel's concerns in the narrative, which is told prim-
arily from Bendrix's point of view, but occasionally from Sarah's. There are
five Marcelian themes present in this novel in one form or another: (1) the
theme of fidelity, particularly the attempt to understand the meaning of the
experience of fidelity; (2) the relation of fidelity to the existence of God; (3)
what it means for an individual to have fidelity to God; (4) the mystery of
faith, and the search for the transcendent in human life; and (5) what Marcel
calls “the ontological need for being,” which is the search for structure and
coherence in a troubling world, a theme of existentialist philosophy in gen-
eral. We have space in this chapter to discuss only a few of these themes.
The first point we might draw attention to is that after Sarah begins the
affair, she is troubled by doubt and guilt. She wonders if her affair with
Bendrix is morally wrong. In particular, she wonders if it is not a betrayal of
her husband, Henry, who loves her, and with whom she has entered into a
binding marriage vow. (A subsidiary theme in the novel, and one also well
worth our attention, is Henry's willingness to forgive Sarah because of his
love for her, and later to forgive Bendrix after he finds out about the affair.)
Despite Sarah's attempt to rationalize the affair, she cannot rid herself of her
doubts. What is interesting about her moral worries is that they are inspired by
a religious sensibility. That is to say they are inspired by a genuine experience
of the transcendent based on a real exploration of questions relating to the
transcendent in human life, rather than inspired by a culturally created guilt
complex, or a desire to conform (which is perhaps the way many contem-
porary novelists would portray her doubts). Sarah does not experience guilt in
the sense that she is disturbed by the knowledge that organized religion, and
perhaps society, would frown upon her actions, but in the sense that she
knows she is breaking a serious promise, and that breaking that promise hurts
not just her husband, but herself as well. Initially, she tells herself that she
need not worry because God doesn't exist, but soon comes to admit to herself
that this answer does not work.
In the light of Marcel's ideas on the transcendent, we can see two issues
in play here. First, Sarah is trying to understand what her marriage promise
involves, what it means, and why it is a bad thing to break this promise.
Second, her experiences with this question prompt her toward the existence of
God. Whether Greene intended to introduce this point or not (and he has
acknowledged that the novel is partly autobiographical), this confirms in a
dramatic way Marcel's suggestion that when we are trying to make sense of
the notion of fidelity, we can be led to the question of God's existence. That is
to say, a scenario can begin to open up in which God is a key player. Writing
in her diary about her marriage vow, Sarah says, “Nobody will know that I
have broken a vow, except for me and Him, but He doesn't exist, does he?” 13
She begins to get angry with God for complicating things, perhaps a first step
along a road that might lead to religious affirmation. It would be much
simpler if God didn't exist, wouldn't it? The question of the transcendent
forces itself upon the characters despite their best attempts to resist it. This
echoes again what is one of Marcel's better known remarks that “the crisis
which Western man is undergoing today is a metaphysical one; [our] sense of
disquiet . . . rises from the very depths of man's being.” 14 This crisis awakens
an “ontological need” in human beings. This happens to Sarah Miles, and
later it will also happen to the committed secularist Bendrix, and also to
another figure in the novel, the rationalist who preaches against religion in
Hyde Park, Richard Smythe, a kind of A.J. Ayer figure.
It is around this time that Sarah makes her promise to God. This promise
places both her and Bendrix in a very paradoxical situation. It was her love
for Bendrix that partly caused her to make the promise, but the promise itself
means she must renounce him and stay faithful to her husband. And all the
while her dependence on, and belief in, God becomes stronger. Sarah says: “I
said 'Let him be alive', not believing in You, and my disbelief made no
difference to You. You took it into your love, and accepted it like an
offering…and it was for the first time as though I nearly loved You.” 15 From
Bendrix's point of view, he is being thwarted by religion, but because he
respects Sarah he cannot simply dismiss her judgment on these matters. And
as the novel progresses both Bendrix, and Henry her husband, who is also a
secularist (both of them might even be nihilists in the sense that they seem to
believe in nothing; they are not portrayed as having any positive beliefs),
begin to weaken, and their atheist outlook, especially in Bendrix's case, is
seriously tested.
In this dramatic situation the Marcelian theme of the mystery of faith
and of openness to the transcendent is exemplified. Later in the novel, the
focus is particularly on Bendrix, since a person cannot go through such exper-
iences without them having a profound effect on his worldview. And the
effect on Bendrix is fascinating. The issue is made all the more significant by
the fact that after Sarah's death a number of unusual events occur that could
be interpreted either as coincidences or as miracles; if we interpret them as
miracles, this suggests that Sarah may have been a type of saintly figure, and
perhaps also suggests further evidence of the existence of God. One of these
miracles is that a skin blemish on the rationalist Smythe's face clears up.
Soon after, he is on the verge of converting to religious belief, accepting that
he had long been in denial about religion. His new attitude shakes Bendrix, as
it would do anyone in a similar situation.
These experiences and events illustrate Marcel's theme of the possibility
of religious faith in a hostile world, and his point that the individual must
really be open to this possibility. Marcel's point I think is that God wants us to
be open to Him, and He will do the rest. Some interpret this part of Greene's
story to be a denial of free will in the sense that God knows what is going to
happen, and has foreordained the conclusion (and Bendrix does say at one
point that this story has only one real Narrator). 16 However, it is better to read
Greene's point as not that we have no choice, but that, as Marcel has argued,
the possibility of God is there, and it is up to us to respond to it. But we are
free to reject this possibility if we wish. Perhaps because of this, Greene's
tactic of using the coincidences/miracles at the end of the story is overdone, as
he himself has acknowledged. It would have been better to illustrate the
power of religious belief in more human ways. As Greene himself later said,
rather than presenting the coincidences all at once, they “should have
continued over the years battering the mind of Bendrix, forcing on him a
reluctant doubt of his own atheism.” 17
The novel ends ambiguously in that we do not know what becomes of
Bendrix's wrestling with his doubts over God. But his initial response is the
response of Camus' rebel—he is angry with God, rebels against him, does not
want to believe in him. As Bendrix says, “I hate You God, I hate You as
though You existed.” 18 But of course none of these reactions make much
sense unless God exists, a point Bendrix might come to see in the end, if
indeed he hasn't seen it already. But this wrestling reflects Marcel's analysis
of human experience and modern culture—where the former often moves us
toward the transcendent, but the latter often moves us away from it.
3. Marcel and Philosophy of Religion
We must try to draw out the implications of this analysis in order to app-
reciate Marcel's approach to traditional philosophy of religion. Philosophers
of religion have always been very much concerned with the arguments for the
existence of God, among other topics. It is well known that Marcel is not esp-
ecially sympathetic to these arguments, not especially fond of the various
attempts to prove the existence of God. This is because, according to him, for
an argument to produce a genuine affirmation of God, it would have to
involve the personal experience of the subject in some fairly profound and
unique way, but in a rational argument, this appears to be ruled out by def-
inition, at least according to his account of primary reflection. There is the
suspicion that to attempt to prove the existence of God, as Professor Hanratty
has put it, “is to reduce the mystery of God and of man’s relationship to Him
to the level of problematic thought.” 19 Yet I don't think Marcel is here com-
mitting to the view that the traditional arguments for the existence of God
have no value. He can surely agree with those who hold that the traditional
arguments provide some evidence for the existence of God, and can prepare a
person intellectually (that is, at the level of primary reflection) for such a
belief.
We should not forget that Marcel must allow for the possibility that a
person could be presented with various rational arguments for the existence of
God, find them very persuasive, and, as a result, come to believe that God
exists. It is true that such a person would not yet have entered into an exper-
ience of the transcendent, which may include an affirmation of God, but this
would surely follow. So in this scenario, although the arguments did not
themselves lead directly to an affirmation of God, nevertheless we would
have to agree that they were of great value in bringing that person to an
eventual affirmation. Marcel holds that a person can only make a genuine
affirmation providing that he or she has certain experiences such as the kind
that he has outlined. A person could also justifiably affirm the existence of
God on the basis of the experiences without any appeal to the traditional arg-
uments, yet we can see from the particular case mentioned that the arguments
for the existence of God can be very valuable. It is an extreme position, I
think, to argue that the existence of God question is outside the realm of
rational discussion altogether, and Marcel is not suggesting this. Indeed, he
does acknowledge in The Mystery of Being (Vol. II), that “reflection must
confirm the legitimacy of a faith, which it grasps at first in its most abstract
essence.” 20
So, there is a way, I think, in which Marcel's own position could, taken
broadly, constitute a type of argument for the existence of God. We might
even call it a moral argument (indeed it might be a version of Kant's moral
argument for the existence of God). Although I think he would resist the
suggestion that he is offering us an argument for the existence of God,

nevertheless, if one believes in God, as Marcel does, there has to be some way
to help the unbeliever to an affirmation of God. More importantly, from the
philosophical point of view, there has to be a way of illustrating the ration-
ality of a belief in God. I think we can develop his view to present the foll-
owing possible three-part argument for the existence of God: (1) various
experiences open up the possibility of God, such as unconditional marital
love, making promises, fidelity, etc; (2) the traditional arguments (especially
the cosmological and design arguments) can show that there is some “objec-
tive” evidence for the existence of the Being affirmed in (1), and perhaps also
that an atheistic worldview is problematic; and (3) a consideration of the
consequences for humanity if we reject God constitutes yet another reason to
accept him (a significant theme in Marcel’s thought). Accepting God here
means that we seek out those experiences in which God is revealed, and
which are generally lost when God is rejected (as in the experiences of Sarah
Miles, and also of Bendrix). This three-part “argument” would have to be
filled out in more detail, and it would not demonstrate the existence of God
(in the sense of being a knock-down proof), but it can, I think, at least
illustrate the rationality of belief in God, and this is consistent with Marce1's
task.
No doubt atheistic objections will be raised against Marcel's view. One
of the most typical will be of the form: “but he does not really prove the
existence of God, nor does he show that belief in God is reasonable.” Marcel's
reply to this type of objection is clear. The existence of God cannot be proved
objectively, but if one opens oneself up to the possibility of, and enters into,
the kinds of experiences described above then an affirmation of God becomes
possible, and is shown to be rational. If one is unwilling to enter into these
experiences then one can continue secure in the belief that the existence of
God can never be proved. Marcel, of course, does not overlook this point. The
atheist is secure because he knows he can reject any proof, or even a rational
argument that stops short of claiming to be a proof. But if other experiential
ways to an affirmation of God are offered, he cannot reject these philosoph-
ically until he has genuinely tried them out.
There are two other challenges to Marcel's view that we need to consider
briefly: (1) we might reject his claim that the experience of an unconditional
commitment can only be ultimately explained by the existence of God; and
(2) we might hold that experiences of the type he describes are not really
possible in human life, and those who would claim to have them are engaging
in self-delusion. Perhaps the atheist will claim that we “create” these exper-
iences ourselves, but they have no objective basis. I think we can quickly
dismiss the second objection in the light of the overwhelming evidence that
human beings do have such experiences, and that they are genuine exp-
eriences, which transcend our own psychology. We should add that Marcel
further argues that the rejection of God on a large scale in modern culture will
inevitably lead to an inability to see the possibility of such experiences. Also,
conversely, an inability to have such experiences, which is becoming more
and more characteristic of the modern age, will lead people to reject belief in
God. The reply to the first objection is that the existence of God is, first, a
reasonably good explanation of these experiences, and, second, perhaps the
only reasonable explanation available. This is not to deny that people can
have these experiences without making the affirmation of God, as I have
noted, but it may well be that the existence of God is nevertheless their
ultimate ground.
4. The Argument from Religious Experience in “Reformed

Epistemology”
It will prove very instructive to compare Marcel's position with work in recent
Anglo-American philosophy of religion. Various philosophers, influenced by
the Reformed theological tradition of John Calvin (1509–1564), have pro-
posed and developed a new argument for the existence of God in recent times
based upon religious experience. Alvin Plantinga, William Alston, John Hick,
and Nicholas Wolsterstorff have developed this argument, among others. 21 I
will briefly overview a few different versions of this argument here in order to
bring out the comparison and contrast with Marcel's view.
Before we look directly at the views of these Reformed thinkers, it is
important to distinguish the approach of the Reformed thinkers to the topic of
religious experience from the traditional approach to this topic. Proponents of
the traditional argument held that we can infer from the fact that people had
religious experiences that God exists, or can infer that God was the best
explanation for the experiences. What is distinctive about this argument, from
the point of view of our discussion, is the inference from a religious exper-
ience of some kind to the existence of God. Critics would typically attack the
argument at the point of the inference, suggesting that, for various reasons,
the inference may not be justified, is not rational, is hasty, or is based on an
interpretation of an experience which is not in itself religious. The contem-
porary argument, developed by Alvin Plantinga and other Reformed thinkers,
suggests that there is in fact no inference involved in most types of religious
experience, that we can move directly from a religious experience, as it were,
to the existence of God. We are somehow directly made aware of God in the
experience, or the presence of God is directly evident in the experience, and
the person who has the experience knows this in some indubitable way
(which, if true, would mean that God exists, and so it would be rational for
believers who have had such experiences to believe in God on the basis of
them). We can see immediately that Plantinga's approach, which we will look
at here primarily, has clear affinities with the approach of Marcel.
Plantinga is critical of the traditional epistemological theory known as

“classical foundationalism.” 22 Classical foundationalism, held by many phil-
osophers in the past, including Descartes and Locke, is based on the view that
there are two types of beliefs, namely, basic beliefs and inferred beliefs. Basic
beliefs are ordinary, everyday beliefs, and are justified beliefs in virtue of
being basic. Examples of these beliefs would include beliefs such as “I am
sitting at my desk now reading a book,” “I drove to work this morning,” “2 +
2 = 4,” “I went to the library yesterday,” and so on; in short, beliefs that are,
as Plantinga puts it, “self-evident, evident to the senses, or incorrigible.” 23
These beliefs are basic because they are not inferred from any other beliefs.
The second type of beliefs—inferred beliefs—are inferred on the basis of
other beliefs, namely, the basic ones. For example, my belief that it will rain
this afternoon is an inferred belief; my belief that Eisenhower was a good
president is an inferred belief. All of our inferred beliefs are eventually
traceable back to dependence upon some set of basic beliefs. Basic beliefs
include beliefs that would fall under the general categories of ordinary
perceptual and observational beliefs, memory beliefs, beliefs arrived at by
introspection, etc.
Plantinga goes on to argue that belief in God may not be an inferred
belief for a wide range of people, but may, in fact, be a basic belief. This
would be true for those who believe in God based upon some kind of religious
experience, an experience that they personally have had. For people who have
had a certain type of experience belief in God would be a basic belief, just
like beliefs based on perception, observations, memories, etc. In a sense,
Plantinga can be read as not attacking classical foundationalism as such;
rather, he is arguing that there is a tacit criterion underlying classical found-
ationalism, a criterion for deciding what would count as a basic belief. He
wants to broaden the criterion to allow belief in God based on religious exper-
iences to be among the foundational, or basic, beliefs.
Plantinga claims that there is a contradiction at the heart of classical
foundationalism. This is that classical foundationalism is based on the crit-
erion that “whatever is self-evident, or evident to the senses, or incorrigible”
is a basic belief, but he holds that there is no good argument to support this
foundationalist criterion for “properly basic beliefs.” According to Plantinga,
the criterion is self-referentially incoherent because it itself is not self-evident,
or evident to the senses, or incorrigible! The criterion undermines itself
because it says, on the one hand, that we should begin with beliefs that are
self-evident, evident to the senses, and incorrigible, but then we go on to
accept the criterion itself which is none of these things.
William Alston adopts a quite similar strategy to that of Plantinga. He
argues that religious experience can provide direct justification for religious
beliefs. He does this by arguing that Christian epistemic practice enjoys
basically the same epistemic status as ordinary perceptual practice, and,
therefore, in the absence of significant potential defeaters of direct exper-

iential justification of religious belief, belief in God on the basis of religious
experience is rational. The kind of religious experiences that Alston has in
mind, however, are not those typically associated with the traditional argu-
ment from religious experience. Alston gives an example of what he has in
mind by “religious experience”:
When someone believes that her new way of relating herself to the
world after her conversion is to be explained by the Holy Spirit im-
parting supernatural graces to her, she supposes her belief that the
Holy Spirit imparts graces to her to be directly justified by her exp-
erience. What she directly learns from experience is that she sees and
reacts to things differently; this is then taken as a reason for suppos-
ing that the Holy Spirit is imparting graces to her. When, on the other
hand, someone takes himself to be experiencing the presence of God,
he thinks that his experience justifies him in supposing that God is
what he is experiencing. Thus he supposes himself to be directly just-
ified in his experience in believing God to be present to him. 24
In the absence of any detailed phenomenological description of an actual

case, it is not clear from these examples what Alston means by religious exp-
erience. He seems to have in mind some kind of total picture, or total view, or
even interpretation, of the total panorama of our experience, in which the
existence of God is somehow directly made manifest. I say “directly” because
Alston makes it clear that there is no inference made to the existence of God.
Rather, the existence of God is somehow directly presented in one's total
experience. John Hick holds a similar view. He makes it clear that he shall not
be:
Asking directly whether A's “experience of existing in the presence of

God” is genuine (for that would require us to know first, independ-
ently of this and all other such experiences, and as a matter of
established public knowledge, whether God does indeed exist and was
present to A), but rather whether it is rational for A to trust his or her
experience as veridical and to behave on the basis of it; and also, as an
important secondary question, whether it is rational for others to
believe in the reality of God on the basis of A's report. 25
Hick also seems to hold that belief in the existence of God is carried directly
in the experience. By “religious experience,” Hick says that he has in mind
what people mean when they “report their being conscious of existing in
God's presence and of living in a personal relationship of mutual awareness
with God.” 26 This is obviously very similar to Alston's view. However, in the
absence of a detailed phenomenological description of a particular case of a

religious experience, the position of both Hick and Alston remains quite
vague. This makes the kind of detailed discussion that this very complex issue
requires very difficult. However, it seems, to put it as specifically as their exp-
osition will allow, that what both are saying is that one can understand the
whole panorama of one's experience in a religious way, an experience in
which one becomes aware (directly or non-inferentially) of the presence of
God, and that such an experience makes it rational to believe in God.
There are several problems facing this version of the argument from
religious experience. Considering a few of these will also be helpful when we
come back to Marcel's view. First, some critics have argued that Plantinga, in
particular, is implicitly suggesting that belief in God is actually groundless,
that we do not need any evidence or reasons to believe in God. 27 We can
believe in God on the basis of several of our own experiences, and, if chall-
enged about our belief, we can simply reply that it is a basic belief. A second
criticism is that Plantinga's view appears to sanction just about any kind of
belief, no matter how ridiculous, or poorly supported, or even dangerous (the
problem of relativism). For example, what is to prevent a person who wor-
ships the Abominable Snowman from arguing that the belief is a properly
basic belief? The person may claim that he or she has a private experience of
the Abominable Snowman, that it is reliable, and therefore good reason to
believe in, and indeed to worship, the Abominable Snowman. And since it is a
basic belief, it is therefore rational and does not require any further just-
ification.
Plantinga is aware of this potential problem for his view, but he thinks it
is obvious that some beliefs are not justified; he gives examples of beliefs
about the Great Pumpkin (from the Peanuts comic strip), or about Voodoo, or
astrology. Beliefs relating to these topics are often groundless, because they
are not based on genuine experiences. Plantinga argues that the proper way to
work out whether a belief is a justified properly basic belief is through
induction. What we must do, he says, is to “assemble examples of beliefs and
the conditions in which those properly basic beliefs are called forth such that
the former are obviously properly basic in the latter.” 28 He often compares
religious beliefs based on our experiences to perceptual beliefs based on our
experiences. For perceptual beliefs, an example might be “I see a tree before
me”; we know the conditions under which this belief would be justified even
though it is a basic belief. If, for example, you were taking a particularly
strong medicine that caused you to have occasional hallucinations of different
types of trees, then you might not trust this perceptual belief, but otherwise
you would. It is the same with religious beliefs. Plantinga argues that we
know the appropriate kinds of conditions in religious communities that call
forth basic religious beliefs. For example, in a Christian community people
typically have religious beliefs of the sort that “God is near” or “God created
this flower,” and so forth. These are properly basic, and therefore justified,
beliefs. Plantinga holds that many people have some kind of direct experience
of God (which he does not describe fully), an experience which makes their
belief in God basic, rational and justified. And so the experience of the Abo-
minable Snowman referred to in the above example, he would claim, is
illusory in some key sense, because it is not based on real events, is not shared
by anyone, is not basic, and so not reliable.
A third problem in general with this modern view is that these thinkers
do not give a sufficient description of religious experiences. This is a problem
because many people do not have religious experiences of the sort mentioned,
whereas everybody has ordinary perceptual experiences. This is surely a large
part of the reason why the latter are not controversial, but the former are, and
so the analogy with perceptual experiences is quite strained. This is why a
description of religious experiences is an essential part of the debate. In part-
icular, without a detailed description, it is difficult for us to see whether or not
there is an inference involved in the move to the affirmation of God. One way
round this difficulty might be if religious experiences of the non-inferred sort
that Plantinga, Alston and Hick are talking about were very common in our
lives. If many people could recognize the experiences these thinkers are
referring to, then perhaps we could confirm their argument through our own
experiences. But such experiences do not seem all that common.
Turning our attention back to Marcel, it seems to me that his argument
for the existence of God on the basis of human experiences has advantages
over Plantinga's approach, and it does not come with the problems that face
the Reformed epistemologists. Within the context of the argument for the
existence of God from religious experience, Marcel is arguing that the
existence of God is inferred on the basis of our experience of unconditional
commitments; it is also the best explanation for these commitments. But let us
remember that he is not just saying that this is what the philosopher might
argue, he is saying that the “absolute Thou” is what a person who is involved
in an unconditional commitment experiences as part of that commitment.
Marcel is suggesting that a person moves from the experience of uncon-
ditional commitment to the experience of God as the ground of such exper-
iences. The philosopher notes the move to the existence of God in later
reflecting on the phenomenological analysis of the experience. Yet although
the philosopher is drawing attention to the inference in a sequential, dis-
cursive manner, the move to the existence of God is founded upon an actual
experience that people undergo, and is not something that is known only from
a conceptual point of view. Many people experience unconditional commit-
ments in this way themselves, even if some do not, or if some deny that such
commitments are possible.
This approach enables Marcel to avoid some of the difficulties facing
the approach of the Reformed epistemologists. Marcel can escape the problem
of relativism that is often leveled at the Reformed epistemologists because the

experiences he calls attention to and describes are ordinary experiences of
human life, easily recognizable to many people because they are part of their
own lives in various ways. He is not talking about rare experiences, of an
esoteric or even a mystical sort, but experiences that are a part of the human
condition. This is why his argument resonates with so many; indeed it is what
gives his argument a certain power—it has a confirming echo in our own
experiences.
A crucial strength of Marcel's position is that he provides detailed
examples and descriptions of experiences that on their face do not seem to be
religious in character at the beginning, but that lead to a religious way of
looking at things because they call for the absolute trust of the people inv-
olved. Marcel, therefore, may be said to have a stronger overall argument for
the existence of God. In comparison with the Reformed epistemologists,
Marcel can point out that he appeals to universal experiences with which all
human beings can identify in any argument for the rationality of belief in God
based on religious experience, whereas Plantinga and Alston appeal to exper-
iences that are more controversial and debatable to begin with. Even though
Plantinga may point out that the experiences he is talking about are more
common than critics of religious belief might be prepared to grant, nobody
can really deny the experiences that are the basis of Marcel's argument.
Marcel raises the debate concerning religious experience out of the
realm of private experience, and raises it to a level where it can become at
least partly an issue of public (philosophical) discussion. As we have noted in
our earlier chapters, this approach is reflective of his philosophical method in
general. Hick and Alston may be forced to conclude, on their view of the
nature of religious experience, that it is up to God to reveal himself to the
individual if the individual is to have a religious experience that would make
belief in God rational. Marcel, however, because he appeals to universal
experiences, can suggest that there is something each individual can do
personally to bring about an affirmation of God, namely, actively seek out
those experiences and their ultimate explanation.
Finally, as to whether Marcel would agree with Hick that a person
can be justified in believing in God if he only knows of somebody who has
had a religious experience (in Marcel's sense), he would undoubtedly agree
with this. For this is just what Marcel means by the living witness, or creative
testimony, which he sought to express throughout his work, and, by all
biographical accounts, throughout his life too.
Six
A MARCELIAN CRITIQUE OF THE PROBLEM

OF SKEPTICISM
1. The Problem of Skepticism
Rejecting the approach to knowledge characteristic of medieval philosophy, with

its blend of philosophy and theology, and its reliance on what he regarded as
abstract metaphysics, René Descartes was concerned to put knowledge on a
sound footing, especially scientific knowledge, since in his time there was a new-
found commitment to the potential of scientific knowledge for understanding
reality. Yet, in adopting this general approach to questions about knowledge,
Descartes unwittingly started philosophy down a road which he did not foresee,
and which he would have utterly rejected. Subsequent philosophers rejected his
solution to the problem of knowledge, pointing out that the ontological argument
did not succeed, and identifying the problem which later became known as the
Cartesian circle. Nevertheless, philosophers were impressed with Descartes's
skeptical arguments, and also with his objective of trying to establish scientific
knowledge on a sound footing by means of philosophical argument. The upshot
of the debate initiated by Descartes was that modern philosophy became
obsessed with epistemology, especially with the issue of skepticism, either in
defending skepticism as a philosophical position, or in developing episte-
mological theories that showed how the problem could be overcome. However,
soon arguments for skepticism came to dominate and even eclipse the search for
knowledge, and slowly began to breed a certain cynicism about the quest for
objective knowledge.
It might seem that the problem of skepticism should not be taken seriously.
Yet, since Descartes, philosophers have continued to take the problem of
skepticism very seriously. They have, in fact, become so obsessed with the
problem that they have devoted vast amounts of time and energy generating
countless books, articles and discussions in an attempt to solve the problem.
However, these attempts have been mostly futile. No universally agreed upon
solution has emerged from over three hundred years of intense discussion; in
fact, I suppose it is true to say that these efforts have not even succeeded in
producing a solution (or even a hint of a solution) that has come to be accepted
by even a few philosophers. What we can say for certain is that the current state
of play on what Kant called “the scandal of philosophy” is as follows: many
excellent and serious-minded philosophers still take the problem of skepticism
just as seriously as Descartes and Kant appeared to take it; no solution to the
problem has yet emerged; and many philosophers are genuinely worried by the
perceived consequences of this failure. This latter point should not be taken
lightly.
Another approach, exemplified by Barry Stroud (1935–) for example, 1 is to
suggest that the truth of the main principle at issue in the problem of skept-
icism—the principle that there is some essential connection between our beliefs
and the way the world really is—should be given up unless we can prove that
skepticism is not a logical possibility. Stroud obviously takes the problem of
skepticism seriously enough to suggest that we should be prepared to suspend the
reliability of our everyday beliefs if no solution is forthcoming. Yet it is true to
say that most philosophers, however, regard the problem of skepticism as a
wasteful academic exercise and dismiss it out of hand. Some are even embarr-
assed to teach the problem in their philosophy courses to fresh, unsuspecting, and
philosophically innocent minds. Outside of the discipline of philosophy, perhaps
no problem has done more to give philosophy a bad name than the problem of
skepticism.
In our reflections in this chapter, I want to elaborate an argument that is
present, but not developed in any detail, in Marcel's thought (it is also present to
a certain extent in Heidegger)—that the problem of skepticism is not a real
problem. It is, therefore, not one that we should take seriously, expend much time
and energy trying to solve, and worry about the consequences if we fail to solve
it. It is, in short, a pseudo-problem. I have previously argued 2 that the problem of
skepticism is a pseudo-problem by analyzing the problem on its own terms (from
within, as it were), and trying to reveal significant difficulties with the way the
problem is formulated. In our discussion here, I will try to illustrate a different
way of showing that the problem of skepticism is a pseudo-problem, by
appealing to the alternative approach to epistemological issues to be found in
Marcel, and other existentialist thinkers. We shall draw upon Marcel's critique of
Cartesianism, and of his alternative view of the subject (discussed in previous
chapters), especially the implications of his approach for what we have called his
“new epistemology,” and also for the issue of the objectivity of knowledge.
Robert Lechner has reminded us of W. E. Hocking's (1873–1976) observation
that Marcel's approach “may well be in its completion the major achievement in
epistemology of the present century.” 3 So it will be interesting to explore how
Marcel’s approach can function as an effective response to the traditional prob-
lem of skepticism.
The traditional problem of skepticism was inspired by Descartes, who
adopted three arguments to motivate his program of methodic doubt: (1) the arg-
ument from illusion; (2) the dream argument; and (3) the evil genius argument. 4
The third step in his program of methodic doubt, the evil genius argument, is
necessary because the first two steps do not provide sufficient warrant for him to
doubt all his beliefs. It will be recalled that the truths of arithmetic and geometry,
Critique of Skepticism 89
and the basics of corporeal nature (extension, shape, size, number, etc.), escape
the first two stages of Cartesian doubt. So in order to doubt all of his beliefs, it is
necessary for Descartes to introduce an evil genius who might be deceiving him
in all his beliefs. As he puts it in the Meditations, “I shall then suppose, not that
God who is supremely good and the fountain of truth, but some evil genius not
less powerful than deceitful, has employed his whole energies in deceiving me.” 5
The evil genius is introduced by Descartes as a logical possibility. That is to say,
such a being could exist, and might be deceiving him in all his beliefs. However
implausible this may be, there is no contradiction involved in asserting the
existence of such a being. Of course, Descartes does not for a moment think that
there really is an evil genius. Rather, the evil genius is for Descartes a convenient
device to enable him to generate universal doubt before he moves on to offer his
solution to the problem of skepticism. With this universal skepticism in place,
Descartes's task then is to illustrate that the evil genius is not in fact a logical
possibility at all.
Of course, it is the move from step two to step three that has made many
people suspicious of the problem of skepticism. It is particularly this move in the
argument for skepticism that many find hardest to take seriously (and not just
non-philosophers and students, but even most philosophers). Suspicions are rais-
ed because there seems to be no good reason to adopt step three at all; it looks as
if Descartes is creating a problem where one does not exist. It is true that steps
one and two give us pause to think twice about the truth or falsity of some of our
beliefs (at least in certain circumstances), and they do seem to lend some support
(however slight) to the claim that there may be reasons to doubt the principle
upon which all our knowledge is based, that is, the principle that there is an
essential connection between our beliefs and the way the world really is. But it is
precisely in the move to the third step that the plausibility of the overall argument
seems to break down. This common sense response is behind Marcel's general
approach to the problem.
Marcel's approach is to suggest that if we take a careful look at the origin of
the problem of skepticism, and the root of the conceptual difficulty involved in
solving the problem as stated, it is reasonable to conclude that the problem is not
a real problem, but one of our own making, and so we should look elsewhere for
the foundations of knowledge. He develops a general line of argument, which
can serve as a solution, and it is a solution that other continental philosophers,
most notably Heidegger, would accept as well, as least in broad outline.
2. Marcel's Rejection of the Problem of Skepticism
Marcel's analysis of sensation, and of the notion of human embodiment, along

with his identification of the realm of situated involvement (all discussed in
earlier chapters), illustrates that it is not possible to detach myself completely
from reality, so that I can actually doubt its existence. The motivation for the
doubt of traditional epistemology is, therefore, arbitrary and misguided. The

knowing subject is not essentially a detached universal ego, but an individual
being who experiences the world immediately. Therefore, the problems
generated by the universal, detached ego of traditional epistemology are
pseudo-problems. They result from a mis-characterization of the self as an ego
detached from the world, faced with the problem of recovering the world in order
to secure the validity of knowledge. We must now elaborate this criticism of the
traditional problem of skepticism, but before we do so let us briefly mention one
other consideration that has motivated Marcel, at least implicitly, in his critique
of traditional philosophy after Descartes.
It is not just Marcel's identification of the assumptions at work in the
Cartesian approach to epistemology that convinces him that traditional phil-
osophy is misguided. It is also the total failure of the traditional project to
establish the validity of knowledge, according to its own conception of this task.
Of course, this failure was one of the inspirations for the development of the
whole movement of existentialism. The existentialists were motivated in part by
the belief that the failure of the traditional project is an indication that there is
something radically wrong with the understanding of the nature of the human
self, and of the nature of philosophy, out of which the traditional project springs.
This fact alone, according to them, should tempt us to re-examine this alleged
starting point for epistemology. Even according to the canons of the scientific
method, the traditional project should have been abandoned long ago. For is it
not the case in science that if a proposed theory has not been confirmed after a
very long period of time, that it should be conceded that the principles or
intuitions upon which the theory is based are very probably inadequate, and that
it is time to start looking around for fresh proposals?
However, this has not been the attitude toward this particular theory in
recent philosophy. Barry Stroud, for example, in his influential book on the
problem of skepticism, contends, as we have seen, that one of the conclusions
concomitant upon our failure to refute skepticism, is that we must consider
abandoning our cherished belief that there is some vital connection between our
knowledge and the way the world really is in itself. 6 However, Marcel suggests
that it would be more preferable and far more reasonable (at least it is consistent
with the role of knowledge in human life) to question the approach to knowledge,
and the view of the self motivating it, which initially calls this cherished belief
into question, than to think about giving up the belief. He expresses it this way:
Total skepticism would consist in saying: “I am not sure either that

something exists or what sort of a something it would be that could
exist.” But to assert, in this way, that perhaps nothing exists implies the
previous taking up of two positions; firstly, I lay down a criterion, no
doubt a vague, inexplicit criterion, failing to satisfy which nothing can
be said to exist; secondly, I ask myself whether anything I am directly
acquainted with satisfies that criterion, and come to the conclusion that
I am not quite sure. I will risk saying that a question framed in such
hazily defined terms lacks even metaphysical significance; but at the
phenomenological level, at least, it is quite obviously meaningless. 7
The problems with the vague formulation of the skeptical question, and the lack
of evidence to motivate the question, should make us realize that the question is
meaningless. Does not the fact that hardly any philosopher has been convinced
that we should give up this cherished belief suggest that there is something
seriously wrong with the project which both proposed, and then failed, to answer
the problem of skepticism? The fact that hardly any philosopher is willing to
really give up this belief at any level of conceptual work is confirmed by
observation of how philosophers actually work with knowledge claims in their
own personal lives. This should lead us, Marcel believes, to attempt to uncover
and examine critically the assumptions which motivate the approach of Cartesian
philosophy to the problem of knowledge. Unfortunately, in recent philosophy, we
have had to endure a whole host of new attempts to solve Descartes's basic
problems about knowledge, all of which have met with the same fate as his
attempt. 8 In fact, so unsuccessful have recent attempts been to vindicate true
knowledge, that there is now an overwhelming trend in contemporary philosophy
toward either skepticism, or some form of relativism, concerning the nature of
knowledge and meaning. Yet, as the existentialists are fond of pointing out, this
is only a trend in the academic discipline of philosophy, it is not a trend in the
actual experience of human beings, including the experience of academic
philosophers themselves.
One of the reasons the traditional problem of skepticism has not been
solved, and will not be solved, according to Marcel, is because it is not a genuine
epistemological problem. What traditional skepticism seems to be asking about—
the human mind—is not what it is really asking about. What it is really asking
about—the epistemological subject—is a philosophical fiction. Marcel's phen-
omenological analyses illustrates that the traditional epistemologist is not
justified in divorcing the knowing subject from the world of external objects in
order to generate the problem of skepticism. Such a split is necessary, of course,
and part of the normal operation of reflective thought, when we wish to solve
problems, and to discover scientific and mathematical knowledge, for this is what
the process of abstraction requires. In this process, the role of the detached
observer is crucial, and a result that is available for everybody is required. It is a
crucial point to recognize, however, that when we are engaged in primary
reflection, the problems of the existence of external objects (which correspond to
the subjects of our concepts), of the existence of the body, and of the relationship
of these objects to the mind, do not arise. But when we use the same approach
(that is, primary reflection) to generate problems of this latter sort, we are arb-
itrarily creating problems that are not genuine philosophical problems. It is little
wonder, therefore, that we are unable to solve them, as James Collins (1917–
1985) has pointed out when he says, “It is only in virtue of an arbitrary decree
that Descartes divorces existence and the existent and then reserves from doubt
one instance of an existent, the thinking self. But once this divorce is made, it is
impossible to justify any particular case of existent being.” 9
If we regard the world simply and primarily as an object for the intellect,
this can only be because we have ignored the manner in which human beings
actually interact in their experience with the “objects” of their experience. Marcel
has defended this claim by means of his analysis of sensation (discussed in chap-
ter 2) which reveals that sensation allows us access to the world of being (as
Marcel calls it), a world which is not first apprehended by a thinking or knowing
mind. Rather, as he has put it, “knowledge is environed by being” 10 ; that is, we
come to know things at all only because we are already in a contextual situation
in our world. Marcel's analysis of our relationship to our own bodies (also
discussed in chapter 2) is further support for this view. I start out as a being-in-a-
situation, not just interacting in a world of “objects,” but also in a world with
other people, and this basic situation becomes the condition of all knowledge
whatsoever. This is what he means by the “existential indubitable,”—the
assurance or “exclamatory awareness” of my own existence as an incarnate
being. 11 He also expresses the same point in another way: “To think the meta-
problematical is to affirm it as indubitably real, as something I cannot doubt
without contradiction. We are in a zone where it is impossible to disassociate the
idea itself from the degree of certitude it carries.” 12 This realm cannot be reduced
to and made subservient to the realm of primary reflection, though it can be
partially analyzed and partially understood in primary reflection. But from the
vantage point of primary reflection, it is not possible to motivate any kind of
global skepticism.
To first split the self off from the world, and then insist that the question of
the existence of the self, and of the world, must be squarely and honestly faced
without reference to the realm of “situated involvement” from which the
epistemological subject has been derived, is obviously absurd. Marcel makes the
point this way: “If therefore the 'I exist' can be taken as an indubitable touchstone
of existence, it is on condition that it is treated as an indissoluble unity: the 'I'
cannot be considered apart from the 'exist.'” 13 The Cartesian can deny of course
that the epistemological subject is parasitical upon the realm of “situated involve-
ment” but then he needs to provide a counter argument to Marcel's. In such an
argument he will be at a disadvantage since the Cartesian tradition has never
provided an accurate description of the mind and its “ideas,” as we saw in
chapter 1. Rather, the Cartesian position simply assumes that every idea can be
understood without reference to our bodies and to our world. If the Cartesian
accepts Marcel's conclusion about the nature of “situated involvement,” but still
insists on the legitimacy of the traditional problem of skepticism, then he is in
effect holding that we must divorce ourselves from our ordinary involvement
with the everyday objects of our experience, and face the question of whether or
not they really exist, and even the question of whether or not I myself really
exist. On any reasonable reading, this seems to be an inconsistent position.
Marcel's reply in summary is, first, that we cannot perform this divorce to
generate genuine problems, and, that, second, all “knowledge” of the conceptual
variety occurs within being, or is environed by being. This means, as he notes in
his essay “Existence and Objectivity,” that if we set aside our epistemological
assumptions we recognize that we are living in a real world of experiences and
meanings; we can deliberately set all of this aside, of course, but this is a setting
aside, and so does not generate a real problem, no matter how useful it might be
as an academic exercise in epistemology. Marcel is not even convinced of the
epistemological usefulness of the problem of skepticism, for, he continues, “But
how then are we to avoid being tempted to conclude that this idea is a pseudo-
idea, that it has no hallmark to guarantee it and that it must be thrown on to the
scrap heap as a useless tool . . . . ?” 14
It will be helpful to elaborate Marcel's reasons for rejecting the traditional
problem of skepticism a little further. In particular, I wish to respond to two
objections that raise interesting issues, and a discussion of them will help to
further clarify Marcel's position. These objections are: (1) What is Marcel's reply
to the question of how I can know that this chair which I seem to perceive in
front of me really exists?; and (2) Does Marcel's position commit him to the view
that we can never know things as they are in themselves? The response to the
first objection is straightforward. If skepticism about the existence of the external
world is insisted upon, it would be necessary, Marcel would respond, to make
explicit the reasons why we take this global doubt seriously. The formulation of
this problem will of course follow along traditional epistemological lines: I have
a concept of a chair which I can fully understand without reference to the world,
and I therefore must face the possibility that the chair itself might not really exist.
I must ask the question as to whether there is any really existing chair, out there
in the world, which corresponds to our concept. Marcel, however, has tried to
illustrate that concepts of chairs are arrived at, or better, derived, only after a
process of abstraction from the “situated involvement” wherein “objects” have
meaning for the individual subject. When our concept of “chair” is analyzed in
this way, it is seen to be parasitical upon this ontologically prior level. The
subject's particular ideas cannot be analyzed and described without reference to a
body and a world, because it is the subject's unique situation in existence that
gives his ideas their particular character. The concepts we have are only
abstractions from these particular ideas. If this is true, then the traditional
skeptical question is seen to generate a pseudo-problem.
The question might be pressed as to how it is possible to distinguish
between illusion and reality, even granted the derived nature of conceptual
knowledge. The issue here is: couldn't I be “involved” with something that
actually did not exist? For example, I might believe that my boss was prejudiced
against me. I think that Marcel's epistemological approach can handle this type of
objection, in the same way that Husserl, for example, would handle it. He can
reply that if an individual subject was “involved” with an “object” which actually
did not exist (that is, if he was under an illusion of some kind), his experience
would eventually throw problems in his path because of this illusion. For
example, there might be situations where my boss treated me well over a period
of time. Such problems would be tackled at the level of primary reflection, and at
this level we can easily discover by examination of the particular case in
question, that the problems occur because the “object” of the individual's
experience does not exist. Marcel does not wish to deny the possibility of illus-
ions of this kind. He recognizes that there is a legitimate question here, but it is a
question for which there is a legitimate answer. One is in a world by virtue of
being a person. Within that world there is a perfectly legitimate way of dis-
tinguishing illusions from reality. But this is not his point. His point is that we
cannot use arguments like this one to motivate the global doubt of Cartesian
skepticism. To motivate this doubt, as we have seen, we would have to show that
one's involvement with all of the “objects” of one's experience was “proble-
matic.” In short, we would have to show that we could understand all of our
ideas without reference to the world, and, as Marcel has illustrated, this cannot be
done. Here is a quote from Heidegger which makes a similar point: “The
question of whether there is a world at all and whether its being can be proved,
makes no sense if it is raised by Dasein as being-in-the-world; and who else
would raise it?” 15
The second objection gets right to the heart of the implications of Marcel's
position for traditional epistemology. If Marcel is correct, I suggest that the
meaning of the phrase “things as they are in themselves” now becomes quite
blurred. This is because the answer to the question about “things as they are in
themselves” will be relative to the point of view we take, either that of primary
reflection, or that of “situated involvement.” For if a question about things as
they are in themselves is asked from the point of view of primary reflection (from
the “theoretical attitude”), then a description of our abstract concept of the thing
will be sufficient for an understanding of the nature of the thing. That is to say, if
one believes, as Descartes did, that the “theoretical attitude” is the primary way
to knowledge, and that this involves selecting those features of things in the
external world which are naturally presented in conceptual knowledge, then a
description of our abstract concepts is what is required when we ask a question
about things as they are in themselves. If, however, we accept Marcel's view of
the primacy of the existential subject, and ask “what are things like in them-
selves?” we will require a phenomenological description of the meaning of the
thing in the external world as it is defined in relation to a particular subject.
There is no guarantee, as we saw in chapter 2, that this meaning will be the same
for all, although it will be similar for many, though never identical. Now of these
two answers, the second one is nearest the truth for Marcel, because the first is
derived from it, and it is derived from no other “point of view” of the objects of
our experience. We saw this illustrated in chapter 3 in the case of the peasant
who experiences the land from a conceptual point of view (the “objective” point
of view), and from a more personal, subjective point of view. As Marcel puts it
in The Mystery of Being: “consciousness is above all consciousness of something
which is other than itself, what we call self-consciousness being on the contrary a
derivative act . . . . ” 16
John Richardson, in his study of Heidegger's attempt to undermine the
Cartesian project, argues that, for Heidegger, we cannot know what things are
like in themselves. This is because our theories, for Heidegger, never have a
transparent access to things in themselves. As Richardson puts it, “our theorizing
is inevitably rooted in a concernful understanding whose goal-directedness and
temporal diffuseness precludes the explicitly and focused grasp of things
independent of context, at which theory aims.” 17 Later in his study, Richardson
agrees that skepticism is true for Heidegger in the sense that we cannot know
what things are like in themselves, but points out that this is a derivative truth,
and is not the most basic truth about our human condition. According to Rich-
ardson, “It itself depends on the truth that we are temporally stretched along, so
as to be rooted in an unchosen past, and reaching out toward a limited future.” 18
It is clear even from this brief discussion by Richardson that he takes the
question of what things are like in themselves to be a perfectly normal and
meaningful question, and one which Heidegger (whose views here can be seen to
be very similar to Marcel's) cannot answer. I wish to suggest, however, that
Marcel's reply to this problem—and indeed Heidegger's too—is that this question
has no meaning in the sense that it is impossible to give an answer to it. Suppose
the second objection we have been considering above is pressed further. The
objection now runs: I wish to know what things are like in themselves, not from
the “primary reflection” standpoint, nor from the “situated involvement” stand-
point, but independently of any standpoint. Marcel's reply would be, I think, that
“things” only have meaning within a human context, and that it is impossible,
therefore, to describe what things would be like in no context at all. For what
kind of answer would be required to the above-stated question?
What is required to answer this question is a description of what things
would be like when no human beings are involved with them, that is, a descript-
ion of what things would be like if no human beings existed at all. If no human
beings existed at all, Marcel would claim that there would be no “things,” or, in
other words, no meanings. “Chairs” and “tables,” and all objects of experience,
would have no meaning if no human beings existed because their meanings
emerge in history and culture, and most importantly, depend upon their place in
the situated involvement of particular human subjects. “Something” would exist,
of course, if no human beings existed, but these “things” would not be “like”
anything because they would have no meaning at all. Things being “like” some-
thing in the sense that what they are “like” could be described to a human being
necessarily involves a human perspective. Meanings depend upon there being

human beings to generate meanings. But the traditional epistemological question
of what things are like in themselves requires a description of the meaning of an
object independently of any human being. Therefore, the question of what things
are like in themselves is inherently problematic. It requires us to say what the
meaning of objects would be if there were no human beings around to give them
meaning. (In chapter 3 above, I indicated how Marcel's view avoids falling into
relativism at this point.)
It might be further objected that if Marcel's view is right, then there must be
some relation between his theory and the world, and how can we know that this
relation really holds? Marcel's reply to this interesting point, and indeed the reply
adopted by many existentialists, is to say that he is not proposing a theory. That
is, he does not hold a system of concepts that exhibit logical relationships which
we can then wonder about really obtaining in the world. Rather, Marcel wants to
uncover, or reveal, that fundamental level of “situated involvement,” not which
we know to exist (it is not a conceptual representation corresponding to some
object in the world), but which we are. As he puts it: “to take up such a position
. . . throws into relief the essentially anti-cartesian character of the metaphysic . .
. . It is not enough to say that it is a metaphysic of being: it is a metaphysic of we
are as opposed to I think.” 19 In adopting this approach Marcel sees himself as
doing ontology. Instead of supposing that the self is initially and basically a self
looking out upon a world, and then concerning himself with epistemological
problems concerning the knower and the known, he wants to concern himself
with ontological questions concerning the kind of beings we are, and how we
come to know anything at all. 20 Marcel is engaged primarily in a task of phen-
omenological ontology, not epistemology. His phenomenological method seeks
to show that our everyday involvement as embodied beings in situations cannot
be made intelligible in terms of disinterested concepts, but rather can actually
account for the possibility and place of primary reflection (and, therefore, for the
place of any theory or system).
Further, as Marcel suggests, the task of presenting a theory that proves the
validity of knowledge to, and for, everyone is absurd. In traditional episte-
mology, we are always left with the problem of explaining how our theory,
which is supposed to be explaining the conditions for the possibility for know-
ledge, is itself known. A theory of this kind leaves knowledge available for no
one, as has in fact happened in traditional epistemology. This approach has failed
in traditional epistemology because there are always knowledge claims involved
in the foundations of the theory that are not explained by the theory. Thus Hume,
for example, begins his epistemological project with the claim that all the
perceptions of the human mind resolve themselves into two distinct kinds, which
he calls impressions and ideas. Yet this statement itself is neither an impression
nor an idea. The same problem is often thought to face Kant's work because he
appears to be making realist metaphysical claims as the foundation of an anti-
realist metaphysics (for example, he thinks that space and time are categories of
the mind, and anyone who thinks they are external realities is wrong!). Derrida,
and other postmodern thinkers, fall into the same problem. Epistemological
theories that follow this pattern of investigation would seem doomed according
to their own canons for success. 21
It is imperative to understand that Marcel has not tried to avoid the
problems of traditional epistemology by simply saying in a covert way that we
know the external world exists, and that's all there is to it. Rather, he has tried to
show that the understanding of the self on which the traditional project relied was
incorrect, and that this distorted both the perception of the problems of episte-
mology and the methods adopted to solve them. Marcel's account of the self has
shown that thought is not initially cut off from being. We are unable to produce
the divorce or separation of the ego from the body, and the world, except
arbitrarily, in order to generate traditional epistemological problems. This
separation is something that occurs by an act of attentive discrimination only
after the assurance of existence has been given in our experience as subjects in
the world, and the separation is appropriate as long as we do not attempt to
generate the traditional epistemological problems by means of this divorce from
experience. He puts it thus: “From this point of view, as opposed to what episte-
mology strives vainly to establish, there really is a mystery of knowledge;
knowledge derives from a mode of participation that no theory of knowledge can
account for because the theory itself presupposes this participation.” 22
3. Marcel and Contemporary Epistemology
It is interesting to consider how far Marcel's critique of the Cartesian project in

epistemology extends to modern epistemology. It will be instructive to briefly
assess W.V.O. Quine's (1908–2000) views in the light of the Marcelian critique.
From our discussion so far it seems to me that we need to keep three issues in
mind when considering any contemporary epistemological theory: (1) Is there a
serious concern to refute skepticism? (2) Is there an assumption about the nature
of the self, similar to the Cartesian assumption, underlying the theory? and (3) Is
there a prominence given to the scientific view of knowledge in the theory (that
is, is the scientific view of knowledge regarded as the paradigm of knowledge by
the theory)? Any theory which exhibits any one of these three features should be
concerned about Marcel's critique, for he claims that (1) skeptical questions are
pseudo-questions, that (2) the Cartesian view of the self is mistaken, and that (3)
the scientific view is not the paradigm of knowledge, that theory cannot explain
human existence, but that human existence can account for the possibility and
place of theory.
A lot of current work in epistemology such as that by Alvin Goldman
(1938–), Robert Nozick (1938–2002), Laurence BonJour (1943–), Stroud, etc.,
takes skeptical questions very seriously, and is designed to either answer them, or
sketch a way in which the skeptical questions might be undermined. It is also true
to say that these theories assume some version of Descartes's view of ideas and
how they relate to the world. At the very least, and most importantly for my point
here, proponents of these theories regard the epistemological subject as the true
account of the nature of the self, and hold that our concepts and beliefs can be
divorced from the existence of everything else, including our own bodies. Our
task then as epistemologists is to attempt to develop an adequate philosophical
theory that successfully restores the link between our concepts and beliefs, and
the external world. Contemporary epistemologists accept Descartes's basic under-
standing of the mind and its relation to the world—that the mind is essentially
shut off from the world, and that our job is to connect them back up again. So
epistemological theories of this kind are clearly included in the Marcelian
critique of epistemology. (This criticism also applies to the “brain-in-a-vat”
argument discussed by Hilary Putnam {1926–}. Marcel's point is that it would
not be possible to have a “vat” idea which would be the same as an idea from
everyday experience.)
What is particularly interesting about Marcel's position is that, in con-
temporary epistemological theories (such as those proposed by the philosophers
mentioned earlier), and indeed in general in contemporary philosophy, a holistic
view of concepts is now generally conceded. Cartesianism, understood as a
particular (that is, realist) account of how the mind matches up with reality is
now rejected by many contemporary epistemologists. That is to say, many philo-
sophers now hold that our concepts are internally related to the theories (or
language forms) in which they occur. Quine has famously asserted that “the
totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of
geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure
mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only
along the edges,” and he accepts Pierre Duhem's (1861–1916) thesis “that
theoretical sentences have their evidence not as single sentences but only as
larger blocks of theory, [and so] the indeterminacy of translation of theoretical
sentences is the natural conclusion.” 23 This view has influenced a generation of
analytic epistemologists. A remarkably similar conclusion has shaped recent
European thought as well, influenced by Derrida's and Jean-François Lyotard's
(1924–1998) claims that there are no identities beyond culture and language, that
the mind is imprisoned in language, and that we need to continually express our
“incredulity toward metanarratives.” 24
While it is sometimes not clear how the relationship between concepts and
theories—and reality—is supposed to be understood in the work of any of these
philosophers, it is true that, in the contemporary context, a holistic view of
concepts is now much more accepted than Marcel would ever have dreamed of.
Yet, Marcel's criticism also applies to the “theories” of contemporary philoso-
phers, theories to which our concepts are supposed to be internally related. The
problem these theories face is that they offer an account of knowledge that is
based on the assumption that we can understand what it is to know something

distinct from the embodied context of the knower. This assumption is behind
almost all contemporary epistemological theories. According to Marcel's view,
these theories will themselves have to be formulated at the level of primary
reflection, and will involve abstraction from the level of “situated involvement.”
Therefore, the level of theory is not ontologically basic, and a full understanding
of our theories will not adequately explain our human activities and human
practices. Rather, all of our theories will have to be understood ultimately by
appeal to the ontologically prior level of “situated involvement.” So Marcel's
view turns out to ask very probing questions of the whole enterprise of recent
epistemology, with its holistic view of concepts.
It is particularly interesting to consider in this respect the views of Quine. It
is clear that Quine is a critic of the Cartesian view of the self, and the approach to
epistemology motivated by it, describing it derogatorily as “the myth of the
museum.” 25 Yet there is a sense, however, in which Quine's theory of “natur-
alized epistemology” is an attempt to refute skepticism of the traditional variety.
But giving him the benefit of a favorable interpretation, we might say that he is
engaged in a project which shares a similar aim to a project like Marcel's—to
undermine the skeptical challenge by providing a detailed description of what
knowledge is and how it arises, and how it fits into our life and practices.
However, he appears to avoid the Cartesian trap essentially by eliminating any
substantive notion of the self in the acquisition of knowledge, and replacing it by
a mere body which simply occupies a place in a causal system (which is
arbitrarily taken as the starting point):
Epistemology . . . studies a natural phenomenon, namely, a physical

human subject. This human subject is accorded a certain experimentally
controlled input—certain patterns of irradiation in assorted frequencies,
for instance—and in the fullness of time the subject delivers as output a
description of the three-dimensional external world and its history. 26
That is to say, Quine seems to adopt as a basic, and unargued for, assumption of
his view that the self is a completely material entity (and expresses his view in
scientific terminology as a substitute for actual empirical data), and knowledge
acquisition is to be understood by regarding the self from some independent
(third party) standpoint, that is, by approaching the self as just one object among
other objects in a causal system. This whole system would then be an object of
scientific study. The self is then taken as the starting point of the investigation in
a way that he is at a loss to justify without reintroducing concepts that have
continued to dog a naturalistic approach to epistemology, such as mental states of
a non-physical nature, qualia, and, of course, free will (a topic, and problem,
most contemporary naturalists pass over in silence.)
Yet, looking at Quine's theory in terms of our first two considerations then,
I think that he could make a case for saying that his epistemology is not based on
the assumptions that the existentialists are trying to expose as erroneous. Yet, in
terms of our third consideration—whether science is regarded as the paradigm of
knowledge—I think there is a clear preference in Quine's epistemological theory
for the scientific approach to knowledge. Certainly he appears to accept
psychologism, and the scientific project motivating it, as a matter of principle.
The existentialists claim that any option to regard the scientific view of
knowledge as the paradigm of knowledge must be arbitrary, and that this option
seriously distorts the whole approach to epistemological questions. Descartes's
view of the self, we recall, and his preference for the scientific view of
knowledge, complimented each other very well in his development of the project
of epistemology. Now, can we say that something similar is going on in Quine's
theory, that his preference for the scientific view has misled him in his approach
to epistemological questions?
Quine does not explicitly spell out the place of science in his theory, yet it
is clear that he has a preference for science (though, on his theory, it is far from
clear why he should). On the one hand, he begins his approach to epistemology
by saying that “epistemology is concerned with the foundations of science,” 27 but
then goes on, after surveying the current woes and failed attempts of recent
epistemology, to offer his own view which is that “epistemology . . . simply falls
into place as a chapter of psychology and hence of natural science.” 28 A cursory
reading of the former remark might suggest that Quine is engaged in a similar
task to that of the existentialists in that he wants to show how knowledge
(including scientific knowledge) arises within our everyday human experiences
and cultural institutions. But, if this is true, then his preference for the scientific
method, expressed in the latter remark, is indeed curious, and seems arbitrary. It
is also a reason why he is forced to eliminate any substantive notion of the self
and its role in the process of knowledge. A consequence of his arbitrary
preference for science is that he loses the self as the subject experiences it and
lives it (if we might put it like that). In my view, this criticism of Quine becomes
very forceful in the light of Marcel's analysis of the human subject.
We can see where this approach of Quine's is going to end up. It is one of
the supreme ironies of mainstream modern and contemporary approaches to
epistemology that scientific knowledge itself must finally succumb to the anti-
realism and relativism characteristic of the post-Cartesian approach. And it is
interesting to observe Quine's attempt to exempt scientific knowledge from his
unpalatable relativistic presuppositions, and also to observe the postmodernist
move to do the exact opposite. If all knowledge is relative, Lyotard argues, then
so is scientific knowledge. Lyotard holds that science too must legitimate itself in
modern society, and that—despite its pretensions to objectivity—it does this by
appealing to a narrative of its own. But narratives are to be understood as lang-
uage games. To defend this controversial view, Lyotard then proceeds to offer an
essentially Wittgensteinian language-game theory of meaning and truth. He
makes the following three points, without elaboration or illustration by means of

examples, about language games: (1) rules do not carry within themselves their
own legitimation, but are the object of a contract; (2) if there are no rules, there is
no game, and (3) every utterance should be thought of as a “move” in a game.
Later, he adds that “language games are the minimum relation required for
society to exist.” 29 The important point for the purposes of our discussion here,
though, is not the problems facing such a view, but the fact that, unlike Quine,
Lyotard does not attempt to exempt science from his general relativistic approach
to knowledge. 30
Yet if this relativistic approach to science is correct, then the whole
worldview of naturalism and empiricism is completely undermined, and it is no
wonder that Quine wants to finally shrink from this particular conclusion, since
the defense of the naturalistic worldview is one of his objectives. However, he
cannot have it both ways: either there is objective knowledge, and so scientific
knowledge can be objective, or there is no objective knowledge, and so scientific
knowledge is not objective. At least we can say that the postmodernists are being
somewhat more consistent on this point, than are the analytic philosophers. (I
say “somewhat” since, despite their relativistic inclinations, the work of the post-
modernists is also full of objective epistemological and moral claims, as
illustrated in chapter 3).
Quine holds that we do not have a good reason to reject science. He has
been criticized for this claim because, critics charge, it is hard to see how he
could support such a claim on his theory, since his view is that epistemology
involves an explanation of what people believe and how, vaguely, they come to
believe it in an empirical sense, yet makes no appeal to truth, so that we do not
actually know whether any of our beliefs are right or wrong, or even whether
Quine's beliefs about his own theory are right or wrong. Barry Stroud has made
this point forcefully:
On Quine's view we could not see ourselves as having knowledge or

true beliefs as opposed to merely believing or “projecting” something
about a physical world. We could at most hope to explain why we bel-
ieve or “project” what we do, but since that is never enough in itself to
explain how knowledge or true belief is possible we could never get
the kind of understanding of our own position that we seek. 31
Now perhaps Quine might reply that such a demand is yet another example of the
old epistemology rearing its head, the very epistemology that his new view is
trying to supplant. Whether he could consistently make such a reply is not an
issue I can pursue here, but until he clarifies his arbitrary preference for the
scientific view of knowledge, his theory must be seriously undermined by
Marcel's conclusion that scientific knowledge is parasitical upon the onto-
logically prior level of situated involvement.
Seven
MARCEL AND TRADITIONAL

PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS
In this chapter, I wish to examine some of the implications of Marcel's view

of the human subject as a being-in-a-situation for some other well known
philosophical problems. The problems I will consider were important in trad-
itional metaphysics, but it is with the rise of analytic philosophy that they
have become especially prominent. This exploration seems to me to be a very
fruitful line of inquiry, not only because very little work of this kind has been
done up to now, but because I believe that Marcel's view has profound impli-
cations for our understanding of the problems I will discuss. If Marcel's ideas
can make a contribution to our understanding of these problems it would be of
great philosophical interest, especially since these problems continue to
generate so much attention.
More generally, it is also fruitful, I think, to attempt to discover whether
the philosophical results of one tradition in philosophy might throw new light
upon some of the problems which have engaged philosophers in other trad-
itions. In this respect, it is disappointing that the implications of the existent-
ialist approach in philosophy for some of the main problems of traditional
metaphysics, and now of contemporary analytic philosophy, have not been
adequately explored. Indeed, there has been a notable, and I would say reg-
rettable, absence of dialogue between continental philosophy and analytic
philosophy in the twentieth century. Since I believe that the existentialist app-
roach can throw new light on some of the philosophical problems which
concern contemporary analytic philosophy, it is imperative in my view that
dialogue between the two traditions be established. This chapter is intended to
be a small gesture in that direction.
I will attempt to elucidate the implications of Marcel's position for three
central problems of traditional philosophy: the problem of internal and exter-
nal relations; the problem of necessary connections; and the problem of
identity. These three problems have been around in one form or another since
the early Greeks. The problem of identity has a long history and important
discussions of it are to be found in the work of both Plato (427–347 BC) and
Aristotle. Aristotle also touches upon the issue of internal and external
relations in his analysis of the notion of substance. In modern philosophy,
G.W. Leibniz (1646–1716) and the British Empiricists were concerned with
the problem of identity, and the problem of necessary connections was first
formulated by Hume. But it was not until the rise of analytic philosophy that
the three problems under discussion became especially prominent. This was
due, I think, first, to the fact that philosophers liked working on these
problems because they were problems which readily lent themselves to the
techniques of logical analysis, and, second, to the fact that it was believed that
the philosophy of logical analysis could make some real progress toward their
resolution. This latter hope has not been fulfilled.
Although Marcel does not specifically address any of these problems, I
believe that it will be fairly easy to indicate how, in the light of his general
philosophical position, he would respond to them. Indeed, given Marcel's
general philosophical approach, these are natural problems to consider from a
Marcelian point of view. The foundation of the Marcelian response will be
that discussions of these traditional problems typically presuppose some
version of the Cartesian view of the self as an epistemological subject “look-
ing out” upon the external world. Once we recognize, however, that this
conception of the subject is not ontologically basic then we are free to
reexamine these traditional philosophical problems in the light of that view of
the self which is basic, namely “situated involvement.” My contention in this
chapter, on behalf of Marcel, is that when this reexamination is carried out, it
will become necessary to reassess our approach to, and understanding of,
these same problems.
We will begin our discussion by turning to the problem of internal and
external relations. This will be followed by a consideration of the problem of
necessary connections, and here we will be concerned primarily with the
version of this problem raised by Hume. In the last section we will look
briefly at the problem of identity, a problem which is very closely related to
the other two problems.
1. The Problem of Internal and External Relations
Let us begin our consideration of the problem of internal and external rel-
ations by: first, distinguishing between internal and external relations; then,
second, I will canvass the various views on the topic, considering the way it
has been traditionally approached, and examining some proposed solutions to
the problem; then, third, I will focus on how Marcel's thought, especially his
identification of the realm of “situated involvement,” is profoundly significant
for our understanding of internal and external relations.
One of the main issues for philosophers who are concerned with dis-
covering knowledge of the nature of objects involves the attempt to establish
which relations should be regarded as internal and which as external to the
nature of a thing. Usually they have sought to discover some criterion which
would allow us to make the appropriate distinction in all, or nearly all, cases.
Philosophers who have been concerned with this matter have often focused on
consideration of particular cases in an attempt to arrive at such a criterion.
Traditional Philosophical Problems 105
But, as we will see shortly, the general failure of their attempts to solve the
problem satisfactorily illustrates just how difficult it seems to be to develop a
general criterion for distinguishing between internal and external relations.
Yet I will suggest that Marcel's philosophy offers us a possible criterion, a
criterion that will not only help us to distinguish between internal and external
relations, but that will also enable us to recognize that the traditional approach
to the problem is misguided, and will have to be reassessed.
A relation is said to be internal to a thing when we can say that without
that particular relation (to some other thing), it would not be the thing that it
is. A relation is said to be external to a thing when we can say that it would be
the thing that it is, whether or not it has the relation in question (to some other
thing). So, for example, New York (let us say) would not be the city it is, if it
were not on the East Coast of the U.S. In this case, the particular relations the
city of New York has to other things (for example, being east of Washington,
D.C., close to Europe, etc.), contribute to the kind of thing that it is. These are
internal relations of the city of New York. On the other hand, the Empire
State Building is not necessarily a part of New York—New York would still
be New York even if the Empire State Building had never existed—so, in this
case, New York is said to be externally related to the Empire State Building.
So clearly the problem of internal and external relations is a problem about
what exactly it is that constitutes the nature and identity of an object.
Common sense seems to support some distinction between internal and
external relations, as just drawn. For it seems intuitively correct to say that at
least some of an object's relations are internal to it, that it would not be the
object it is without having those particular relations. But it also seems intuit-
ively correct to say that this is not the case for all of the object's relations.
This intuitive claim also applies to the properties of an object. We normally
think that while some of an object's properties are essential to it, not all of
them are. Some appear to be merely accidental to it.
There is a close relationship between internal and external relations, and
between essential and accidental properties. For the purposes of this dis-
cussion we will sometimes call a relation (either internal or external) a
“property.” This should not cause any confusion for an internal relation can
be regarded as a necessary property, and an external relation, as an accidental
property, of an object. A relation, however, is a special type of property. So
while a relation can, therefore, be called a property, obviously not every
property of an object is a relation. So in our New York example, being east of
Washington, D.C., is an internal relation, or necessary property, of New York,
and the Empire State Building is an external relation, or accidental property,
of New York. One other point needs to be made to avoid unnecessary
confusion. Necessary properties must not be confused with physical pro-
perties. This is because common sense seems to support the claim that some
necessary properties of an object (if they are relations) are not physical
properties, and also that some physical properties are not necessary properties
of an object. The relation of New York to the east coast of the U.S. is a
necessary, but not a physical property, of the city of New York. Yet the
Empire State Building is a physical, but not a necessary property, of the city
of New York.
G.E. Moore (1873–1958) sometimes speaks of relational properties to
specify that property or quality an object has in virtue of having a certain
relation which it would not have if it did not have the relation. 1 Fatherhood,
for example, would be a relational property of a person who is a father. This
relational property is not identical with the relation of fatherhood itself,
because the relation of fatherhood is a relation which holds between two
terms, whereas the relational property is the change (or modification, to use
Moore's terminology) made in a particular object (in this case, a person) by
virtue of having or being in the relationship of fatherhood. Now Moore's
view, and that of many other philosophers, is that while there are undoubtedly
some relations of a thing which are internal to that thing, this is not the case
for all relations of a thing. Some relations, according to this group of
philosophers, which includes Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), A.J. Ayer and
Gilbert Ryle (1900–1976), are external to a thing. This view is in opposition
to the view of philosophers like Josiah Royce (1855–1916), F.H. Bradley
(1846–1924) and Brand Blanshard (1892–1987), who have held that all
relations are internal to a thing, that it would fail to be the thing that it is if it
lacked even one of the relations it has. This latter view is sometimes called
the doctrine of internal relations, a doctrine which was popular with both
idealists and monists. 2
In his famous paper on internal and external relations, G.E. Moore has
clearly stated the position of those who hold that all relations are internal, and
what he believes are the problems with this view. 3 According to Moore, the
doctrine of internal relations holds that (1) A has P entails that (x does not
have P materially implies that x is other than A), and from this, according to
Moore, proponents of the doctrine fallaciously derive that (2) A has P
materially implies that (x does not have P entails that x is other than A). This
move is fallacious, according to Moore, because (1) only asserts that if A has
P then any term which has not must be other than A, whereas (2) asserts that
if A has P, then any term which has not, would necessarily be other than A.
(P here is, of course, a relational property.) Those who subscribed to the
doctrine of internal relations confused (1), which says that A cannot both have
and not have the property P, with (2), which says that A could not be A unless
it had P. Moore claimed that (2) blurred the common sense contrast between
essential and accidental properties. The fallacy arises, Moore holds, because
of a confusion of the physically necessary, but logically contingent, fact that
A has P with a statement about what is logically necessary for something to
be A. Moore's argument was taken to be a forceful critique of the doctrine of
internal relations, and in subsequent discussions of the topic the proponents of

this doctrine were expected to produce arguments which undermined our
common sense distinction between internal and external relations.
However, there is a sense in which Moore is presupposing his con-
clusion. For surely we must have in mind a view of what the nature of an
object consists in, before we can make the claim that A having P is a logically
contingent, although physically necessary, fact about A? In short, we can rule
out the truth of the claim that “if A has P, then any term which has not, would
necessarily be other than A” only if we have already settled the question of
the nature of objects. But it is this very question which is under discussion in
the debate about internal and external relations. This problem appears to be a
difficulty which will face any attempt to solve the problem of which relations
are internal, and which are external, to a thing. It seems that in order to settle
the issue, we would have to decide in advance what the nature of an object
consisted in. Then, of course, the problem can be easily, but (according to
many philosophers) illegitimately, settled.
This has led some philosophers, such as Ayer, to argue that questions
about the internal relations of a particular thing are really only questions about
which propositions about the thing are analytic, and this is only a matter of
linguistic usage. 4 All we would have to do in order to discover the internal
relations of a thing is consult the linguistic usage of the day. But Gilbert Ryle
has opposed this view by suggesting that there are really no analytic
propositions which ascribe properties to particulars. 5 Ryle gives the example
of “Socrates was a Greek philosopher,” and holds that it is misleading to
describe this proposition as analytic. This proposition expresses, according to
Ryle, either the fact that certain features of Socrates, such as being Greek,
were contingently related to other features, such as being married to Xan-
thippe, or the fact, also contingent, that the word “Socrates” is used to refer to
a person who had certain features. This argument was part of Ryle's attempt
to explain the nature of objects in terms of bare particulars. Timothy Sprigge
(1932–2007) has modified Ryle's view in a way which takes us very close to
Marcel's view.
Sprigge argues that we do not have to worry about resorting to bare
particulars, because, according to him, every particular we talk about will
have to be identified by some description or other. 6 This means that we will
never actually be confronted by a bare particular. Sprigge's basic point is that
when we name an object we could not identify the object named unless we
had a particular description of it in mind. A consequence of Sprigge's view is
to relativize which properties are internal to an object, and which are not. This
is because those properties which are regarded as internal will vary from
person to person, for these properties will be relative to the description each
particular person has for identifying the object. This is true, according to
Sprigge, because, as he points out, not everyone will describe the same object
in the same way. He therefore proposes the following definition for internal
and external relations:
Let F be any property of a thing a. Then F is an external property of

a if something interesting and true may be said of the form “if such
and such then not-Fa.” Otherwise F is an internal property. 7
Sprigge adds that since from different points of view different things are inter-
esting, so from different points of view different properties will be regarded
as internal and external.
This notion of a “point of view” bears some relation to Marcel's main
insights, and the relevance of these insights for our understanding of the
distinction between internal and external relations. We have seen that one of
Marcel's major aims is to reveal, by phenomenological descriptions of our
concrete experiences as embodied subjects in concrete situations in existence,
a more fundamental involvement of human beings in the world of experience
than traditional philosophy had allowed for. His essential point, as we have
seen in earlier chapters, is that my embodied context or situation is essential
to how I experience the objects of my experience, and consequently to what
objects mean for me, at the level of existential contact. This is just to say that
my fundamental embodied situation in existence defines the “nature” of the
object for me at the level of experience, or the level of “being-in-a-situation.”
The scientific sense of “object” arises only by standing back from, or abs-
tracting from, my fundamental involvement in existence, and considering
those aspects of the object which can be captured and presented in sharable,
public, and universal concepts.
A consequence of this view is that the traditional distinction between
internal and external relations does not apply or arise at the ontologically
basic level of “situated involvement.” This is because at this level all relations
which contribute to the object's meaning for me (that is, which would be
revealed in a phenomenological description) are internal to the nature of that
object. That is to say, the object would not be the object it is for me if it did
not have all of the relations that would be revealed in a correct phenomen-
ological description of its meaning for me. Marcel seems to have this in mind
when he refers to the example of the artist's experience of the landscape, and
says,
For in fact we are now at a stage where we have to transcend the

primary, and fundamentally spatial, opposition between external and
internal, between outside and inside. In so far as I really contemplate
the landscape a certain togetherness grows up between the landscape
and me . . . . Is this state of ingatheredness not, in fact, the very
means by which I am able to transcend the opposition of my inner
and outer worlds? 8
This is just to say that, at the level of “situated involvement,” the subject/
object distinction has been transcended (or, perhaps more appropriately, has
not yet occurred). And since the relations the object has for me by virtue of
my particular context or situation in existence are definitive of its “nature” for
me at this level, this can serve as a criterion for identifying internal relations,
at the basic level of “situated involvement.” Since only those relations which
contribute to the meaning of the object for a particular subject will be count-
ed, this means that all of the relations the object has at this level are internal.
Let us illustrate Marcel's position by briefly revisiting the example of the
peasant and his relationship to his field (discussed in chapter 3). Most imp-
ortant for Marcel in this example is that the field is internally related to the
embodied context of the peasant himself, since it is his embodied context
which defines the meaning of the field for him at the basic level of “situated
involvement.” For this reason, the field is also internally related to how it was
obtained, to the crops grown in it, to the type of work done in it, etc. These
are the type of relations that are significant for the peasant in our example,
and in any correct phenomenological description of its meaning for the
peasant, only these internal relations would be described. As Marcel puts it,
“We have thus progressed . . . toward a concept of real participation which
can no longer be translated into the language of outer objects.” 9 At the level
of “situated involvement,” “external relations” are not significant for the
meaning of the object for the individual. Of course, in different situations, the
same object could have different internal relations for a particular subject (for
example, for the artist or the tourist).
It should be clear that Marcel's view will have very significant implic-
ations for the traditional problem of internal and external relations. For one
thing, the question of which relations are external should not now arise at the
level of “situated involvement.” For at this level, we are concerned only with
internal relations. To be concerned with external relations at this level is to
make the error of assuming that the level of primary reflection is ontologically
basic, that is, that our concepts do capture the real and full meaning of objects
for the individual human subject. The question of which relations are external
to the objects of my experience now only properly arises in the realm of
primary reflection (or of conceptual knowledge).
However, if this is true, the problem of internal and external relations is
transformed. The problem now loses all of the philosophical significance it
traditionally had, and is quite easily solved. For at the level of primary ref-
lection, we are not concerned with the nature of objects at all. Yet it was this
very issue which gave the traditional problem its philosophical significance. It
was thought that a solution to the problem of internal and external relations
would decide the important question of what exactly the nature of an object
consisted in. But at the level of primary reflection we are dealing not with the
nature of objects, but with our concepts of objects. What a question about
external relations (at the level of primary reflection) is really asking is which
relations are necessary for our concept of an object to be a concept of that
object, and which are not necessary. At this level, the answer to the question
may very well turn out to be that those relations we regard as internal, and
those as external, to the nature of a concept is partly a matter of convention.
The fact that our concepts are at least partly a matter of convention, in a broad
sense, is supported by the fact that different cultures sometimes have slightly
different concepts of the same object. The crucial point, however, is that the
philosophical problem disappears for solving it simply involves settling on a
list of properties that make each one of our concepts the concept it is. We
need to settle on which properties are internal, and which are external, to our
concepts.
Of course, there will be some limit on what can count as internal and
external relations at the level of conceptual knowledge. For as we noted in
chapter 1, Marcel does not hold a holistic view of concepts. He believes that
there are necessary representational similarities between a concept and the
object to which it corresponds. This is because concepts are formed ess-
entially by the mind conforming to the object, and by the object dictating to
the mind the manner in which it shall be known (at the level of conceptual
knowledge). Therefore, at this level there would be a quite specific list of
properties which our concept of “chair,” for example, would have to have in
order to be a concept of a chair. And the identification of these properties
would be dictated by the chair itself. In this way, objects at the level of
primary reflection have a fairly constant identity over history, though I have
suggested that some of the properties we regard as internal to our concepts
might be a result of convention. Marcel has no wish to deny this basic
Husserlian phenomenological analysis of the relationship between a concept
and its object. According to Marcel, “Thus the taste of raspberries may be
linked in my case with walks in the Vosges woodlands . . . and for somebody
else with a house and garden in the Paris suburbs . . . . Yet in principle the
distinction between the kernel and its shell remains valid, and the notion of
the kernel of sensation retains its theoretic validity.” 10 His crucial point is that
at the level of “situated involvement,” the “identity” or “nature” of an object
is not mediated through concepts at all (that is, abstractions) but will depend
upon the embodied contextual situation of each human subject.
It is important to emphasize that Marcel's position does not commit him
to the traditional doctrine of internal relations, espoused by idealists and
monists. That is to say, he does not hold that every relation an object has,
from the point of view of primary reflection (or conceptual knowledge), is an
internal relation. His view is that all of those relations which would be reveal-
ed in a phenomenological description, at the level of “situated involvement,”
would be internal relations. These would be only the crucial ones which
contribute to the meaning of the object for a particular subject. And these
relations are all that would be included, or, more accurately, revealed, in the
description. Only essential (or internal) relations would be described in ans-
wer to the question: “What does object X mean for me?” No external relations
(that is, external relations from the point of view of primary reflection) should
be included, for they do not contribute to the meaning of the object for the
individual. To return to our peasant example, the field might be externally
related to other fields in the area, to the lake a mile away, etc. But these
relations would not contribute to the meaning of this particular field for the
peasant, and so would not be revealed in a phenomenological description of
its meaning for him. They would be included only in a phenomenological des-
cription of the concept, from the point of view of primary reflection.
The traditional discussions of the problem of internal and external rel-
ations, some of which were referred to above, are carried out under the very
presupposition which Marcel's thought is attempting to dislodge—that con-
cepts or theories can fully capture the nature of objects, and that all we need
to decide is which relations are necessary for a particular concept or theory to
be the concept or the theory it is. The mistake of those philosophers men-
tioned above is to ignore the context of both the subject and the “object” in
their various attempts to analyze the nature of objects. Consequently, they are
led to a misguided account of internal and external relations, although, as we
saw, Sprigge was moving in the right direction when he claimed that one's
“point of view” was important for determining which relations are regarded as
internal, and which as external, to the nature of a thing.
This criticism of the traditional discussions of internal and external
relations is also true of recent influential discussions which approach the issue
about the nature of objects through considerations of meaning, language and
rationality, such as in Saul Kripke's (1940–) Naming and Necessity. 11 In this
work, Kripke discusses Sprigge's example of which properties the Queen of
England would have to have in order to be the Queen of England. Kripke
believes that Sprigge's view is interesting but that it needs modification be-
cause it does not quite penetrate to the heart of what the nature or identity of
an object consists in.
However, the interesting point about Kripke's discussion is that it is
carried out from the point of view of what Marcel would call “primary
reflection.” What Kripke is really concerned with is an attempt to find out
what precisely our concept of Queen is—that is, which properties we would
regard as essential (that is, as internal) to our concept “Queen” which an
object corresponding to it would have to have in order to be regarded by us as
a Queen. For example, Kripke asks, would we still regard her as a Queen if
we found out that she did not have royal blood? But this is just to ask if royal
blood is a necessary property of our concept “Queen.” Perhaps we have not
fully settled on the answer to this question, and discussions like Kripke's do
little more than press us to do so. And as I suggested earlier, doing so may be
partly a matter of convention. Kripke's discussion it seems to me is clearly
about what set of properties we regard as essential to the concept “Queen,” a
set of properties which any object we held to be a Queen would have to have
in order to really be a Queen.
Marcel's view would be that those relations which would be essential to
the meaning of the object “Queen” (not the concept) would be defined for
each individual by their own particular contextual relationship to the Queen.
These relations will not be the same for each person. For example, somebody
who had been an advisor to the Queen for twenty years might still regard her
as the Queen even if it was discovered that she did not come from the right
lineage. Another, who is a stickler for royal succession, might not regard her
as the Queen if it was discovered that she had no royal blood. The point is that
the embodied contextual situation of the individual will define the meaning of
the object “Queen” for each individual in their experience. The concept then
of “Queen” is just a convenient abstraction which we all make use of to talk
about objects we treat as the same. It is likely that the majority of people who
do not know the Queen personally, would not be “involved” with her at all in
any real sense, and would know her only by means of conceptual knowledge.
That is to say, they would know her mainly through a concept, or at the level
of primary reflection. (Though even here there is still a meaning present and
operating at the level of existential contact.)
Kripke speculates on what would happen if we found out that the Queen
of England was not a human being at all, but a cleverly constructed computer.
Would we then say that she was not really a Queen at all? That we only
thought she was the Queen because we had been misled? Marcel's response to
this scenario would be that what has happened in this case is that we had the
wrong concept (that is, a concept which did not correspond to the object).
When we bring the concept over against the object, we find that they do not
match up. So at the level of primary reflection we were operating with the
wrong concept in the sense that if we (or most of us) agreed that a Queen had
to be human, have royal blood, etc., then a sophisticated computer would not
correspond to our concept. But at the level of “situated involvement,” it is
easy to imagine that even if the Queen was a sophisticated computer (and we
did not know this) she could still have a certain specific meaning for one of
her advisors, for example, in which all relations would be internal. If it
became necessary, finding out whether or not she was really a human being at
all would be a matter for primary reflection.
It might be claimed that Marcel could allow that some relations, but not
all, are internal to an object at the level of “situated involvement.” That is to
say, some relations could be external relations, even at the level of situated
involvement. But I do not think he could make this claim and be consistent.
For to allow that an object could have external relations at the ontologically
prior level of “situated involvement” would be to allow that there are some
relations at this level which are not necessary to the being of the object, and to
say this is just to say that the object at this basic level has an identity which
does not depend on the context. But the thrust of Marcel's thought is that the
context is ontologically definitive of the being of objects at this basic level of
“being-in-a-situation.” However, as already pointed out, the “context” does
not include all of what would be regarded as an object's relations (both inter-
nal and external) from the primary reflection point of view, but only those that
define its meaning for me, and all of these would be internal relations. It
would be possible, on Marcel's view, for an “object” at the level of “situated
involvement” to have a meaning which involved hardly any of those prop-
erties which would be regarded as essential from the primary reflection point
of view. This would be true in cases of metaphor and symbolism. Thus, for
example, a national flag might have such a profound meaning for an
individual that, when he is involved with the flag in his embodied context, he
does not experience the properties of the flag as a physical object at all, but
only experiences the meaning symbolized by these properties.
2. The Problem of Necessary Connections
The problem of necessary connections, famously developed by Hume, is a

very closely related topic. 12 This problem revolves around the question of
whether or not, if we believe that there is a necessary connection between two
objects, A and B, it is possible to demonstrate that there is a necessary conn-
ection between them. Hume expresses the problem in this way:
What is our idea of necessity, when we say that two objects are nec-
essarily connected together? Upon this head I repeat what I have
often had occasion to observe, that as we have no idea, that is not
deriv'd from an impression, we must find some impression, that
gives rise to this idea of necessity, if we assert we really have such
an idea. 13
Any attempt at such a demonstration will be problematic, according to Hume,

because he can find no impression corresponding to the idea of necessary
connection. 14 If this is the case, then how can we be sure that there is a
necessary connection between A and B just because we seem to observe A
and B together? If it is not possible to demonstrate the necessary connection
we believe to hold between A and B, then why believe there is such a
connection? While this is primarily a question about the nature of necessity
between things in the world, obviously the issue about which relations are
internal, and which are external, to the nature of an object is in part a question
about which relations are necessarily connected or related to an object, and

which are only contingently connected or related. Therefore, the issues of
internal and external relations, and of necessary connections, are part of the
same set of problems about the nature of objects.
Marcel never discusses the issue of necessary connections as such, but I
think we can reasonably speculate on what his answer to this kind of question
would look like. The first point he would make is that Hume has a clear
presupposition about the nature of the self which influences his view of the
nature of physical objects. Hume assumes that the separable mind gazes out
upon the foreign world, and he is consequently led to the conclusion that
physical objects are no more than collections of their observable and sep-
arable properties. (But, of course, the “unity” present in these collections still
remains no more than a fiction for him. 15 ) In opposition to this, Marcel would
claim that Hume's question about the relation of necessity which is supposed
to hold between A and B is a question the formulation of which necessarily
involves (disinterested, universal) concepts which correspond to A and B.
For what this question really amounts to is that since all I really have in my
mind is a concept “A” and a concept “B” (and no impression or idea of any
necessary connection between them), how can I know that any necessary
connection holds between them in the world? Marcel will reply, however, that
this presupposes the truth of the very view of the self he wishes to deny.
The Humean problem about causal necessity is based on the view of the
self which regards the self as apprehending the external world by means of
concepts, and then wondering if the world is really as it appears to be in our
concepts. But the level of “situated involvement” which Marcel is trying to
reveal is ontologically prior to the conceptual level. Therefore, Hume's
problem of necessity cannot apply at this prior level. Rather, Marcel would
say that Hume's problem about necessity is solved, for when we describe the
“nature” of an object, we are not attempting to discover how it is involved in
some previously unsuspected causal and logical relationships with the objects
around it. Rather, as we have seen in the examples in chapter 2, it is through
phenomenological descriptions that we discover how objects necessarily go
together in our experience, that is, how objects and aspects of our experiences
are internally related. In addition, we discover that the level of conceptual
knowledge is derived from this involvement by a process of abstraction. It is
only against a Humean background that necessary relations are judged
problematic, but this is because the view of the self Hume adopts effectively
rules out such relations from the beginning. Also, of course, we must point
out that Hume's claim that “we have no idea, that is not deriv'd from an
impression” 16 looks for all the world like a synthetic a priori proposition, and
one which exhibits the very necessity between things that he is attempting to
discredit.
Therefore, at the level of primary reflection, or scientific-type know-

edge, where questions of causation are usually discussed, the question of
necessary connections in general cannot arise, and one of the major mistakes
of modern philosophy is to think that it might. This is because considering an
object from the scientific point of view is not ontologically basic, that is, is
not that view from which all other ways of considering objects derive. The
scientific point of view must be understood in terms of that account of the self
which is basic, namely, “situated involvement.” However, if this is the case,
then asking, at the level of primary reflection, if we can be sure that A is
necessarily related to B is a mistake because this question presupposes what
Marcel has already shown to be false—that the abstractions from our
experiences as beings-in-situations represented by our concepts “A” and “B”
do actually reflect the real natures of A and B. But this is not the case
because, as Marcel has suggested, at the ontologically prior level of “situated
involvement,” A and B are internally related to the embodied context which
situates the human subject who has the experiences of A and B. Therefore, a
question about whether causal necessity really obtains in the world is a
question which presupposes that objects are really externally related to each
other. But this is just to reassert the ontological priority of primary reflection
(the scientific point of view) once again.
This is true as much for scientific theories as it is for ordinary everyday
living. Let us recall our discussion in chapter 3 that theories consist of organ-
ized bodies of concepts, between which there will usually be complicated
logical relationships; yet these concepts are still abstracted from experience.
We argued there that for Marcel scientific theories will be objectively true if
they adequately represent reality. And that the concepts that make up the
theory will be understood in the same way by all who contemplate them.
Therefore, scientific laws would be based on abstractions from the specific
experiences of individual scientists who are working with the objects of their
experience. (And if scientists initially approach reality though primary
reflection, the realm of science, then the problem of necessary connections
will not arise because they are starting out with the reflective standpoint.) The
relationships present in reality that become the content of various scientific
laws would be expressed in primary reflection by forcing discreteness on our
experiences (for the purposes of doing science, in this case). But we can
approach this matter in the way that we argued Marcel would approach the
problem of skepticism. The problem of necessary connections is generated by
revealing necessary connections at the level of situated involvement, then
forcing discreteness on these experiences, and then asking if these
connections really do hold in the world (since, as Hume noted, we don't have
any conceptual access to the connections, because conceptual knowledge
seems to only operate by forcing discreteness on experience). In this way, the
denial of necessary connections in reality can be seen as a version of the
problem of skepticism, and like that problem, it is a meaningless problem. Of

course, it is also significant that the problem of necessary connections is not
raised by scientists, but by philosophers.
This response is also true for necessary connections that might not
always be the concern of science. For example, a phenomenological des-
cription of the peasant in his field illustrates how the field is internally related
to the peasant. The description illustrates those features which make the field
what it is for this particular peasant. These are necessarily related or conn-
ected to the meaning of the field for the peasant. But to abstract from this
situation in our concepts of “field” and “man,” for example, and then to
wonder if there is a necessary connection between the two objects in the
world which we take to correspond to our two abstractions, is to make the
mistake of thinking that these concepts do reflect the real natures of these
objects. Hume's point is that, if the concepts do reflect the real natures of the
objects, we should then be able to discover the necessary connection between
them, if there is one. Marcel's point is that we cannot talk about the real
natures of objects in isolation from a particular subject, and when we pursue
this line of inquiry in the way Marcel does, Hume's problem, I submit,
dissolves in the way I have suggested.
3. The Problem of Identity
The philosophical discussion of identity is as widespread now as it has ever

been in the history of philosophy. There have been several works in recent
analytic philosophy which attempt a fresh look at the notion, particularly in
the light of the techniques of modern logic. 17 However, as a recent comm-
entator has pointed out, the introduction of logical symbols in recent dis-
cussions is usually for the purposes of decorative abbreviation, rather than
because the symbols provide a substantive contribution to the traditional
discussion. 18 Recent discussions are very much concerned with the analysis of
identity statements in language. Yet there has been little discussion of the
implications of the ideas of existentialist philosophers such as Marcel and
Heidegger for the problem of identity. In this section, I wish to briefly
examine the implications of Marcel's views for the philosophical issue of
identity. Obviously, the issue of identity is very closely related to the issue of
internal and external relations, and, as with the latter problem, I believe that
Marcel's ideas throw new light on the former problem.
The philosophical issue of identity seems to me to raise the following
central issues: (1) What is meant when we say that A is identical with B, in
the case where A and B are different objects? (2) When are two objects really
identical? (3) What constitutes the identity of an object over time? (4) How
can identity be defined? I will base my discussion around the attempt to
provide satisfactory solutions to these problems concerning identity.
The attempt to provide solutions to these questions is usually app-

roached in the following way. Questions (1) and (2) can be approached by
appeal to the principle of the identity of indiscernibles (a phrase first used by
Leibniz). 19 This principle is: If X has every property that Y has, and Y has
every property that X has, then X and Y are identical. This should be under-
stood to mean that it is impossible for two things to differ only numerically.
Or in other words, if two things differ numerically, this is not the only way in
which they differ. At this point in the discussion of identity it is helpful to
appeal to a distinction between relational properties, and physical properties
(or qualities) of the object. For example, if we say that two numerically dis-
tinct objects are identical, in our common sense understanding of identity, we
mean that they have similar, or the same, or identical, physical properties, but
different relational properties. They also differ with regard to some of the
special properties frequently mentioned in the discussions on identity: the
property of “being identical with itself,” and “being different from another,”
and perhaps even the very special property of existence itself. These are
properties peculiar to each individual object; for example, object A has the
property of being identical with itself, and the property of being different
from B, and B has neither of these properties.
The answer to question (1), therefore, is that when we say A is identical
with B (where A and B are two different objects), we mean that the two
objects have many (but not all) properties in common (these properties will be
a combination of relational properties and physical properties depending on
the object). If we say that two different apples on a table are identical, we
mean that they have many properties in common (the same shade of red, same
size, same shape, etc). But we do not mean that they have all properties in
common. Let us say that A is nearer to the end of the table than B. This would
mean that the two objects differ with regard to their relational properties, and
somebody who held that the apples were identical would readily admit that
this was indeed true if pressed on the point.
The outcome of this discussion of question (1) also gives us our answer
to question (2). The answer to question (2) is that two objects are really
identical only if they are the same object. This is borne out when we examine
carefully what we mean when we say that two distinct objects are identical.
When pressed on what we mean here by “identical,” we readily admit that we
do not mean the two things are identical in every respect, so that it would be
impossible to distinguish between them. So our everyday common sense
understanding of identity does not challenge the principle of the identity of
indiscernibles, but serves to confirm it. For our everyday understanding of
identity presupposes that if two objects are really identical, they are the same
object, and if they are not really identical, they are distinct objects. But this is
exactly what the principle of the identity of indiscernibles says. Therefore,
appeal to the principle is appropriate when addressing questions (1) and (2).
However, it is with regard to question (3) that Marcel's work has sig-
nificant implications. In addition, only when question (3) has been settled
should we then turn our attention to the other three questions, and the solution
to them will follow readily enough. Marcel treats the question of identity as a
question primarily concerned with the issue of the identity of an object over
time. This question is very similar to the question: what is the true nature of a
person or thing-like object? What sort of thing is it? What kind of thing is it?
Our discussion of the Marcelian response to the problem of internal and
external relations has already laid the ground work to enable us to establish
Marcel's response to question (3) above: what constitutes the identity of an
object over time? For Marcel the identity of an object over time will be
constituted by its relationship to a particular human subject. What an object
means for a particular individual will depend on his embodied context, as we
have already seen, and there is no guarantee that this meaning will be the
same for all. So, for Marcel, “meaning” and “identity,” at the level of
“situated involvement” are interchangeable notions. So in order to answer
question (3) above, we will first of all have to formulate the question more
precisely. The question will now become: what is the identity (that is,
meaning) of this particular object for this particular person over time? This is
simply to ask: what is the meaning of this object for this particular person?
The answer will then involve a phenomenological description of what the
object means for that person, and this will involve, as we have seen, appeal to
the embodied context of the individual in question.
The first two of our questions above will arise only after we have
abstracted ourselves from our “situated involvement” in existence. So when
we ask, for example, if two apples are identical, we mean to ask if those feat-
ures of apple A which correspond to my concept of apple A are identical with
those features of apple B which correspond to my concept of apple B. The
main point here is that questions (1) and (2) are questions which are raised
only at the level of primary reflection. They arise only after question (3) has
been settled in the way I have proposed. Marcel's thought seems to have been
moving in this direction when he wrote in his early work Being and Having
that “the principle of identity ceases to apply only at the point where thought
[primary reflection] itself can no longer work.” 20
Marcel's answer to question (4) would be, I think, that identity cannot be
defined in any general sense. He would reject the view that the principle of
the identity of indiscernibles can serve as a definition of identity (a view
which is defended by Baruch Brody, but disputed by Max Black {1909–
1988} and G.E. Moore). 21 This is because the principle seems to presuppose
identity, for in order to state it we must first of all understand identity. This
fact emerges when we consider any two objects which we believe are
identical. We believe that they have the same properties in common and
conclude that they are identical. But if we did not know what identity meant,
how could we know the objects had the same properties in common? In order
to recognize sameness, we must already know identity. Therefore, sameness
cannot serve to define identity. It seems, therefore, that identity cannot be
defined because any definition will appeal to sameness of properties, but this
appears to presuppose identity.
In conclusion, it seems to me that Marcel's view has very deep imp-
lications in the ways I have outlined for the problems considered in this
chapter. In addition, I think that the general approach of the phenomeno-
logical ontologists has a lasting contribution to make to our understanding of
problems which are often seen as the sole concern of analytic metaphysics
and epistemology. Phenomenological ontologists themselves such as Sartre,
Marcel, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty have not given enough attention to
these topics. Indeed, it is a great pity that so little dialogue goes on between
the two camps because it is surely the case that the best ideas from either side
can help to throw further light on the problems under discussion. Unfort-
unately, the suspicion, sometimes even hostility, that often marks the
relationship between analytic and continental philosophy has stifled such
dialogue. In this chapter, I have tried to suggest a way in which we might look
at some of these perennial problems anew from the point of view of phe-
nomenological ontology.
Eight
NON-CONCEPTUAL KNOWLEDGE:
MARCEL AND MARITAIN
The distinction between experience and conceptual knowledge is obviously at

the heart of Marcel's new approach to epistemology. We have noted that he
develops his epistemological views so as to allow a significant role for non-
conceptual knowledge in human experience, and also in such as way as to
enable the philosopher to recognize the nature of this non-conceptual know-
ledge and its value. Marcel has argued that there is a type of knowledge which
is non-conceptual, but which is nevertheless real, and, in addition, the realm
of non-conceptual knowledge is where the self encounters many of its most
profound experiences, experiences that are an essential part of the human
essence.
It might be thought that Marcel could have very little in common with
philosophers who champion a purely conceptual approach to philosophy, and
philosophical problems, and we noted that from a practical point of view it
can be quite difficult to engage his ideas in a dialogue with contemporary
analytic philosophers. It takes a deal of goodwill on both sides in order to
bring such disparate approaches into dialogue, as well as a willingness to look
at problems from a quite different viewpoint than one usually adopts. We
attempted to sketch out how this dialogue might go for some philosophical
problems in the last chapter. In this chapter, I wish to continue this dialogue
with other philosophers, but to take it in a different direction. For there is
another tradition in philosophy—the Thomist tradition—where we might
suspect that real dialogue with Marcel might also be difficult, perhaps
impossible. Like the analytic tradition, the Thomist tradition has sometimes
been criticized for being too conceptual, for getting lost in an analytic
approach to philosophical questions and so for not being able to see the wood
for the trees. And, if we are to be honest, we must acknowledge that Marcel
did occasionally make this very criticism of the Thomist tradition. In his
“Autobiographical Essay” Marcel notes that, “. . . Charles Du Bos and I had
weekly meetings with Jacques Maritain, who took great pains to help us
understand Thomist thought better and to appreciate it more. All three of us
showed good will, but the result was meager indeed.” 1 Yet it would be a great
pity if Marcel could not engage in fruitful dialogue with the Thomist tradition
for the simple reason that he shares with Thomistic philosophers so many
points of philosophical agreement. The possible points of dialogue between
the Thomistic tradition and the work of Marcel will be the focus of this
chapter, as we continue our attempt to compare and contrast Marcel's ideas

with those of other thinkers who work on similar problems. We shall take the
work of Jacques Maritain (1882–1973) as representative of the Thomist
tradition for the purposes of our dialogue here because Marcel and Maritain
were contemporaries who often met and discussed philosophical matters.
Thomistic philosophy covers a vast terrain, so we shall confine ourselves to
one area in particular—that of non-conceptual knowledge—because it is a
large theme in the work of both thinkers, so it is an obvious point of departure
from which to begin a discussion.
It is accurate to say that Maritain and Marcel are two of the most
significant Catholic philosophers of the twentieth century. They are also both
converts to the Catholic faith, each finding it more intellectually and relig-
iously congenial to their respective outlooks on life than alternative systems
of meaning. Yet all too often these French philosophers are usually not seen
as intellectually sympathetic to each other, are not generally regarded as
like-minded, and are seldom studied side by side, even by Catholic philos-
ophers. The fact that Maritain is a Thomist philosopher, and Marcel is a
Christian existentialist philosopher, is undoubtedly one of the main reasons
for the lack of dialogue between the work of these two thinkers. The exist-
entialist and the Thomist often did not see eye to eye, and perhaps at certain
times had a healthy suspicion of each other's work. As Ralph McInerny has
put it: “You might imagine a line on which Jacques Maritain occupies a point
to the right, Paul Claudel one on the left, and in the middle, smiling like a
somewhat enigmatic Cheshire cat, sits Gabriel Marcel!” 2
Maritain does occasionally call himself an existentialist, even sometimes
describes his metaphysics as “existentialist,” and yet he does not use the term
in the same way Marcel would use it. Maritain employs the word “existent-
ialist” to focus on the notion of existence in all its manifestations, and,
through this, on being, which is the proper and central subject of meta-
physics. 3 For Marcel, on the other hand, the term “existentialist, “ as we noted
in chapter 1, refers to the view that philosophical inquiry must properly begin
with the concrete lived experience of the individual subject in his or her
concrete situation in existence. This starting point will turn out to have
important implications for human knowledge and meaning. 4 (Of course, the
existentialists differed among themselves over the meaning of the term, and,
at one time or another, most disavowed the label as a description of their own
work, mainly because the term might lead to the perception that they held
what others held who were also described as existentialists!)
Indeed, I think it is fair to say that it is this issue of the significance of
human subjectivity for philosophical inquiry that has been largely responsible
for the discrete distance the two philosophers maintained from each other
throughout their own lifetimes. Maritain believed that the emphasis placed on
human subjectivity, characteristic of Marcel's thought, and of existentialist
Non-Conceptual Knowledge: Marcel and Maritain 123
philosophy in general, led inevitably to an irresponsible neglect of the proper

subject matter of metaphysics, being as such. Marcel, on the other hand, and
existentialist philosophers in general, were motivated, at least in part, by the
belief that traditional metaphysics had led to the predominance of abstract
systems of philosophy, systems which were in danger of losing touch with,
and rendering even more inaccessible, the philosophical issues they were
supposed to illuminate. (Although this was a criticism the existentialists aim-
ed primarily at Cartesianism, more than at other philosophical systems).
During the heyday of existentialism, especially in Paris, there was a
general distrust of existentialism by Thomists and a corresponding distrust of
traditional philosophy by existentialists. The existentialists saw themselves as
breaking away from traditional methods of philosophizing, and the Thomists
often saw the existentialists as a foil for their own work. This mutual distrust
prevented these philosophers from focusing in their own lifetimes on what
they had in common rather than on what separated them, although Ɯtienne
Gilson (1884–1978), who was frequently in dialogue with Maritain, was very
much aware of Marcel’s thought, and even described Marcel as not only “the
most authentic and most profound philosopher of our time, but a true heir of
the metaphysic of Being.” 5 It is clear that Maritain and Thomism share
several key philosophical meeting points with Marcel, and now, in retrospect,
I believe these meeting points are just as significant as the topics over which
they differed.
One obvious difference between Marcel and Maritain—obvious to any-
body who takes even a passing glance at their respective works—is their style
of philosophizing. Seldom have two styles been more opposed. Where Marcel
is unsystematic, cursory, and often cryptic, Maritain is systematic, focused,
exhaustive in detail, and generally quite clear. Whereas Maritain has a clear
project in mind and does all in his power to realize that project, Marcel is
suspicious of system-building in philosophy and prefers instead to offer
fragmentary, and often scattered, points aimed not very clearly at a more
distant philosophical endpoint. Marcel, of course, wishes to make a philo-
sophical point by adopting his particular style of philosophizing; and, in a
sense, we might say that this is true of Maritain also. Nevertheless, I draw
attention to their differences in style simply to emphasize that we should not
let such differences become a barrier to our recognition of the many similar
themes and concerns to be found in their respective works.
We can identify the following common themes in the work of Maritain
and Marcel: (1) a dissatisfaction with the philosophies of Cartesianism,
idealism and empiricism, and a determination to offer a realist alternative to
them; (2) the key role each allows for non-conceptual knowledge in their
work; (3) their recognition of the importance of art and other creative works
for illuminating philosophical truths; and (4) their similar concern with the
structure and development of modern society—culturally, socially, and pol-
itically. The most crucial difference between them, which kept them apart in
their own lifetimes, was the respective roles they each assigned to conceptual
knowledge in their thought.
Our focus in the rest of this chapter will be on the second issue
mentioned above, the nature and importance of non-conceptual knowledge in
the respective philosophies of Maritain and Marcel. This, it seems to me, is
the most significant point of agreement between the two philosophers. And
the fact that each philosopher attached great significance to pre-conceptual
knowledge is a further indication of a deeper affinity between them, an
affinity that neither of them was quite prepared to acknowledge in his own
lifetime. In the next two sections we will provide a brief exposition of the
nature of non-conceptual knowledge in the work of each philosopher, and also
briefly discuss the role non-conceptual knowledge plays in the overall philo-
sophical position of each. In the third section, we will briefly compare and
contrast the main points of agreement and disagreement which have emerged
from our analysis of the work of both thinkers.
1. Connatural Knowledge in Maritain
Maritain's aim as always in his work is the development of an adequate

metaphysics, which would serve as both an alternative to, and as a critique of,
Cartesianism and empiricism. His major work in epistemology is The Degrees
of Knowledge, and, as the title indicates, his aim is to identify and describe the
different types of knowledge in human experience. In the book as a whole, he
distinguishes between two realms of knowledge, natural and supernatural
(suprarational) knowledge. Natural knowledge pertains to the things of the
natural world, which are known in a variety of ways, whereas supernatural
knowledge pertains to the realm of the supernatural. Within the realm of
natural knowledge, Maritain further distinguishes three main kinds of
knowing—the scientific, the philosophical, and the connatural—of which the
third will be our main concern here.
The key datum for Maritain in all three types of knowledge is the chief
insight of his whole metaphysics, the realization that the human mind in all
genuine knowledge conforms to the object. Truth emerges for Maritain in
natural knowledge when the mind lies in “conformity to what is outside of it
and independent of it.” 6 The object dictates the way in which it shall be
known; the object, according to Maritain, is master, and the intellect is at once
passive in the face of it (it does not modify the object), yet active too in
coming to receive or have knowledge of the object. Yet scientific and philo-
sophical knowledge differ fundamentally from connatural knowledge. This is
because the former types of knowledge occur by means of and require the
employment of concepts, whereas connatural knowledge is pre-conceptual. In
scientific and philosophical knowledge, the concept is a formal sign, acc-
ording to Maritain, which means that the concept itself is not what is grasped
by the mind in knowledge; rather the object is grasped or made known by
means of the concept. Concepts, therefore, are not the objects of thought, but
that by which we come to know the objects of thought. Knowledge in either
of these forms issues in explicit and basically accurate judgments, judgments
that can then form the basis of further reasoning and argumentation. Fur-
thermore, scientific and philosophical knowledge arise mainly through
observation, empirical evidence, experience, etc., and by means of deductive
and inductive reasoning from the evidence.
In contrast to these two types of natural knowledge, Maritain places
knowledge by connaturality, which is discussed briefly in The Degrees of
Knowledge, and in a little more detail in The Range of Reason. 7 According to
Maritain, connaturality is “a kind of knowledge which is produced in the
intellect but not by virtue of conceptual connections and by way of demon-
stration.” 8 This negative definition is about as close as Maritain comes to
providing a philosophical description of the nature of knowledge by
connaturality. This is not surprising, however, given that such knowledge is
non-conceptual. It may be possible to give some account of connatural know-
ledge by means of concepts (that is, it may be possible to approach a
theoretical analysis of that which is essentially non-theoretical). This is what
Maritain, the philosopher, is attempting in his philosophical work. However,
since this kind of knowledge is essentially non-conceptual we should not
expect a precise conceptual account of its nature.
Maritain, of course, is not the first philosopher to draw attention to the
presence of this kind of knowledge in human experience. He himself believes
that this kind of knowledge has a long history in human thought, and suggests
that Aristotle makes appeal to it in the Ethics in his discussion of the virtuous
man. The virtuous man is “co-natured” with virtue, and therefore behaves
virtuously. Something very similar to connaturality, although obviously ex-
pressed in different terminology, can also be found in St. Thomas Aquinas
(1224–1274), in some Indian philosophers, and in the work of more recent
thinkers such as William James (1842–1910), Henri Bergson, Martin Buber
and, of course, Marcel, to name only a few. 9
By the phrase “connatural knowledge,” Maritain refers to knowledge,
which occurs when the individual subject becomes “co-natured” with the
object of knowledge. In such knowledge the intellect does not operate alone
or primarily by means of concepts, but operates also with “the affective
inclinations and the dispositions of the will, and is guided and directed by
them.” 10 So strictly speaking, connatural knowledge is not rational know-
ledge, that is, it is not knowledge arrived at by means of concepts alone.
Nevertheless, it is a real and genuine knowledge, even if a little obscure;
certainly it resists the attempt to make it fully accessible in conceptual terms.
Despite the difficulty in bringing precision to our philosophical under-
standing of the nature of connatural knowledge, such knowledge, according to

Maritain, plays an important, and indeed indispensable, role in human exp-
erience. It is to be found in particular in “that knowing of the singular [the
concrete] which comes about in everyday life and in our relationship person
to person.” 11 Knowledge through connaturality is particularly important in the
areas of morality, art, and mystical experience. To illustrate the notion further,
Maritain focuses on an example taken from moral experience.
Moral experience offers the most widespread instance of knowledge
through connaturality. This is due to the central significance of morality in
human experience. Moral knowledge, according to Maritain, is gained in an
experiential way for most people, and such experiential knowledge is nearly
always adequate for the regulation of our moral behavior. In short, moral
knowledge is usually knowledge by connaturality. The individual usually has
a non-conceptual insight, or realization, of how a particular virtue, for exam-
ple, is to be understood and applied in human experience. Yet the individual
may not be able to, and usually cannot, articulate this knowledge, or provide a
conceptual account of it.
An example Maritain discusses is the virtue, fortitude:
On the one hand, we can possess in our mind moral science, the
conceptual and rational knowledge of virtues, which produces in us a
merely intellectual conformity with the truths involved . . . a moral
philosopher may possibly not be a virtuous man, and yet know
everything about virtues. On the other hand, we can possess the
virtue in question in our own powers of will and desire, have it em-
bodied in ourselves, and thus be in accordance with it, or co-natured
with it, in our very being . . . a virtuous man may possibly be utterly
ignorant in moral philosophy, and know . . . everything about virtues,
through connaturality. 12
We may possess in our minds conceptual knowledge of the virtue of fortitude:

knowing how to explain and describe it, how it is to be applied in experience,
which experiences display it, require it, lack it, etc. In this case, our intellect
would be in conformity with various truths that pertain to the virtue. We
would be in a position to answer any question about fortitude by simply
identifying the appropriate truth involved. In this way, a moral philosopher
could know a great deal about virtue, but still not be virtuous. Conversely, we
may know none of these truths conceptually, yet we may be “co-natured with
it, in our very being.” In this second case the individual possesses the virtue,
and when asked a question about it, will answer it through inclination, or
through the will, by consulting his or her own being, by consulting what he or
she is. A virtuous person may therefore be totally ignorant of moral
philosophy. This example illustrates clearly the distinction between know-
ledge of fortitude by connaturality and knowledge of the same virtue through

concepts. In the former case we experience, possess in our being, what the
virtue is, whereas in the latter case we do not possess experiential knowledge
of fortitude, but we do have an abstract, theoretical understanding of the
virtue.
The analysis of moral knowledge as connatural knowledge is also used
by Maritain to discuss and elaborate on the nature of natural moral law. The
natural law is known by everyone in a type of pre-conceptual, non-rational,
non-cognitive, non-propositional way. Natural law is not natural simply
because it expresses the normality of functioning of human nature, but also
because it is naturally known. 13 Natural law is then made explicit, according
to Maritain, in conceptual judgments, but these judgments proceed, not from
prior conceptual knowledge, but from “that connaturality or congeniality
through which what is consonant with the essential inclinations of human
nature is grasped by the intellect as good; what is dissonant, as bad.” 14 It is
important to realize that the word “inclinations” does not merely refer to
animal-like inclinations (although these are also possessed by humans), that
is, to biological impulses of one sort or another. Rather, the word is intended
to convey what is essentially human. These inclinations are, according to
Maritain, reason-permeated inclinations: inclinations refracted through the
crystal of reason in its unconscious or pre-conscious life. 15 Maritain's point is
that human beings have a pre-conscious, but reason-permeated, connatural
knowledge of moral experience, which is known to all, and which is
progressively revealed in the conceptual development of the natural law.
Maritain makes a further relevant and important point about the natural
law. Since the fundamental principles of morality are known by inclination, or
by connaturality, they are known in an undemonstrable manner. This is why
human beings are unable to fully justify in conceptual terms their most
fundamental and cherished moral beliefs. This fact is a further indication of
their essential naturality. In this sense moral philosophy is truly a reflective
knowledge. It does not create or discover the natural law; all it does is
critically analyze and rationally elucidate moral standards and rules of
conduct whose validity was previously discovered in a non-conceptual and
non-rational way
Analogous to Maritain's explanation of our “connatural knowledge” of
morality, is his account of connatural knowledge of art, and of connatural
knowledge of God in mystical experience. 16 The artist and the poet each have
their own special way of knowing the world, which is clearly neither philos-
ophical nor scientific, that is, it is non-conceptual. Art does not generally
communicate on the level of the conceptual, and this is true even of literature
or poetry. Art is rather a type of experience not only for the artist but also for
the audience. Poetical experience also, according to Maritain, is born in the
pre-conscious life of the intellect, and is essentially an obscure revelation both
of the subjectivity of the poet and of some flash of reality coming together out
of sleep in one single awakening. 17 Art also very often communicates to the
spectator in a non-conceptual way. Mystical experience, however, is the high-
est form of knowledge by connaturality because its object is God, and also
because, unlike art, which gives us only indirect knowledge of God, mystical
experience can issue in direct knowledge of God.
It is important to consider briefly the relationship between connatural
knowledge and conceptual knowledge in Maritain's thought. One question to
consider is whether or not connatural knowledge is a kind of foreknowledge
of the principles that later emerge in abstract metaphysics? In other words, is
the intuition of being, which is central to Maritain's metaphysical system, a
type of connatural knowledge? This is a crucial question and reflection on it
will help us clarify further the notion of connaturality in Maritain's thought.
Maritain emphatically rejects the idea that the principles of metaphysics might
be principles which are initially known in connatural knowledge, and which
then become explicit in the intellectual knowledge typical of abstract
metaphysics. 18
The first point Maritain makes is that the critique of knowledge—that is,
the philosophical investigation of the origin, nature and types of knowledge—
is part of metaphysics. This is also true of the investigation of knowledge by
connaturality; its recognition and analysis belong to metaphysics. However,
he further holds that knowledge by means of connaturality has nothing to do
with metaphysics itself. This is because metaphysics proceeds purely by way
of conceptual and rational knowledge, while connaturality proceeds in an
essentially non-conceptual, non-rational way. So Maritain's position is that
while the actual knowledge we gain by connaturality (for example, of
fortitude) has nothing to do with metaphysics (because it is non-conceptual),
the identification and analysis of the nature of connaturality itself as a type of
knowing does belong to metaphysics. It belongs to metaphysics at least to the
extent that we can give a partial, though always inadequate, philosophical
account of this type of knowledge.
Maritain further points out that metaphysics requires the intuition of
being, and that the intuition of being is not a kind of connatural knowledge.
Rather, the intuition of being is an intellectual intuition; insofar as it is an
intellectual intuition it is, Maritain argues, objective—which means that it can
be known and expressed conceptually. The intuition of being is not, therefore,
a “co-naturing” with any object, a co-naturing that could only be hinted at, but
not fully captured, in conceptual knowledge. Maritain further adds that it is
very important not to confuse the two types of knowledge, for any attempt to
make connatural knowledge a type of philosophical knowledge (that is, a type
of conceptual knowledge), and similarly any attempt to express those
principles proper to philosophical knowledge in terms of connaturality will
have the effect of spoiling both types of knowledge and their objects. So
Maritain is careful to keep the two types of knowledge—philosophical and

connatural—clearly distinct, while at the same time maintaining that the task
of the identification and elucidation of connaturality as a way of knowing
belongs to philosophy.
2. Marcel on Non-Conceptual Knowledge
Marcel is obviously very concerned in his work with the distinction between
conceptual and non-conceptual knowledge, or to use Marcel's special terms,
with the distinction between primary reflection and secondary reflection, and
with the corresponding realms of problem and mystery. In fact, the distinction
between conceptual and non-conceptual knowledge forms the basis for
Marcel's Christian existentialist account of the human person. One of Marcel's
primary aims is to explore the role and limits of conceptual or abstract
knowledge in human life. He is concerned with this matter because he holds
that conceptual knowledge is unable to give an adequate account of the
“being-in-a-situation” of each individual in his or her world. We have expla-
ined Marcel's account of the human subject in detail in earlier chapters, and
so, for the purposes of comparison and contrast with Maritain, I will provide
only a brief overview here of the salient points.
Marcel has argued that the subject is always located in a specific context
by virtue of its particular embodied situation in the world. In addition, this
realm is ontologically basic, in the sense that this is how we initially and
primarily experience the world (our world), and theoretical reflection on this
world, though essential, only comes later, and usually prompted by exper-
iences that have arisen at the more existential level. Marcel has tried to show
that the basic level is hard to grasp in conceptual knowledge, and can best be
revealed by phenomenological descriptions. The danger in modern and
contemporary philosophical approaches is that they ignore the ontologically
basic realm of experience, and its significance for our understanding of the
nature of knowledge in general, including our understanding of, and approach
to, philosophy itself.
Marcel's discussion of primary and secondary reflection, discussed in
chapter 3, is an attempt to explain both of these realms of experience, and the
relationship between them. One of his most significant claims, however, is
that conceptual knowledge cannot do justice to the fullness of human exper-
ience in ordinary everyday life. Indeed, the process of abstraction operates
precisely by ignoring the contextual situation of the subject. This is what
makes theoretical thinking theoretical, and if we did not set aside our
contextual situation, we would be unable to perform the task of theoretical
thinking at all. But theoretical thinking carries a risk—that we will end up
treating the human subject as just another object. This also leads directly, as
we have noted, to the generation of the problem of skepticism by Descartes
and the subsequent Cartesian tradition. The tendency to treat human beings as
objects is not just evident in the modern approach to conceptual knowledge,
especially in modern scientific thought, but it is also evident in the increased
bureaucratization of society, and so it becomes prominent in much of modern
life. In this way, the tendency to regard primary reflection as the paradigm of
knowledge is not just a tendency that can affect philosophy and its approach
to philosophical problems, but it can also have an effect on modern culture
more generally, especially on our views of the nature of the human person.
Insofar as this tendency can become institutionalized, it can have a direct (and
negative) effect on human beings in their day to day lives (for example, by
encouraging us to identify people with their functions).
This leads Marcel to the realm of mystery, which is a realm where the
distinction between subject and object breaks down. As he famously puts it in
The Mystery of Being, “A mystery is something in which I am myself inv-
olved, and it can therefore only be thought of as a sphere where the distinction
between subject and object, between what is in me and what is before me,
loses its meaning and its initial validity.” 19 As we saw in chapter 5 on
Marcel's approach to the existence of God, many human experiences are
mysterious because they intimately involve the questioner in such a way that
the meaning of the experience cannot be fully conveyed by means of abstract
conceptual thinking, that is, by cutting the individual subject off from their
experiences. Secondary reflection is that type of reflection that allows us
access to the realm of mystery because it is (1) a critical reflection directed at
the nature of thought itself, and (2) it ends in a realization, or discovery, of
the realm of mystery, and motivates human actions appropriate to this realm.
Marcel sometimes describes this new dimension to which secondary
reflection allows us access to as the realm of Being, or the unity of
experience, a realm that he argues is not actually deduced from any analysis
of theoretical thinking but which is actually the guide (the “intuition”) of
reflective thought. 20 So, like Maritain, Marcel agrees that conceptual
knowledge is a vital aspect of experience, but as philosophers we must
identify its place and its limits. We must also be aware of the possibility of
non-conceptual knowledge, and he agrees with Maritain that the identification
and elucidation of this realm belongs to philosophy.
Without mentioning Maritain by name, Marcel has raised one or two
critical points that would apply to Maritain's notion of the intuition of being.
Marcel believes that the intuition of being is too vague a notion to help us
with our approach to the understanding of how knowledge takes place in
human experience. 21 His worry is that the intuition of being, as described by
Maritain above, is difficult to capture from the side of experience, as it were,
because, as an intuition, it is not quite at the level of experience yet. But it is
also difficult to capture or explain from an intellectual point of view, because,
again since it is an intuition, it is not quite at the level of conceptual thinking
either. The difficulty can arise, Marcel feels, when we attempt to recall the
intuition, or to describe it. The intuition cannot be “possessed” by the mind,
because then it would no longer be an intuition—”[it] cannot be brought out
into the light of day, for the simple reason that we do not possess it” 22 ; in
addition, it is not clear than we can solve the difficulty by saying that it is
mostly an experience. Marcel himself employs the notion of secondary ref-
lection in an attempt to get around this problem. It can do this because it is
both a critical reflection on ordinary reflection, but also then culminates in an
assurance of the realm of mystery, beyond primary or ordinary reflection, as
we have noted. But are Maritain and Marcel really all that far apart on this
matter, especially given that Marcel himself agrees that there is an intuition
behind reflective thought which acts as its guide? We will come back to this
point again in the next section.
3. Maritain and Marcel: Points of Agreement and Disagreement
It is obvious that the realm of non-conceptual knowledge not only plays a

very important role in the respective philosophies of Maritain and Marcel, but
also that their respective explications converge at many points. For Maritain,
non-conceptual knowledge, or connaturality, is one of the main routes by
which we gain knowledge of morality, art, and the deepest human relat-
ionships. It is also a way in which we can express our relationship with God.
Marcel too believes that some of the deepest human experiences, such as
human relationships, including their moral dimension (as manifested in the
concrete approaches of fidelity, hope and love), as well as our relationship
with God, are all essentially non-conceptual. He even suggests, as we saw in
chapter 5, that the absolute and unconditional commitment which is the
defining feature of the most profound human relationships must be ultimately
grounded in the Absolute Thou, that is, in the existence of God. 23
Maritain allows for more conceptual labor in moral philosophy than
Marcel would be happy with; however, both philosophers accept some
version of the theory of natural law, although Marcel does not use the term.
But Marcel clearly accepts that there are important and profound human
experiences which are objective to all, and which, to use Maritain's phrase,
are naturally known. They may also be said to be reason permeated (to use
another phrase of Maritain's) in the sense that they are rational and can be
made philosophically explicit, at least to some degree. Like Maritain, Marcel
also recognizes that artistic expression, especially in drama and music, helps
us to convey some features of those crucial human experiences which are not
fully accessible to conceptual knowledge. Indeed, Marcel frequently quotes
from his plays to illustrate his philosophical points. So both philosophers
agree that any adequate epistemology must take account of non-conceptual
knowledge because such knowledge plays a crucial role in human experience.
The strongest disagreement between the two thinkers arises, I believe,

over the notions of existence and being. 24 In fact, more generally, disag-
reement over the understanding of these two notions defines to a large extent
the fundamental difference between Thomism and existentialism. For Thom-
ists, the concept of existence is always applied to whatever exists, and
Thomistic philosophers focus on what exists precisely in so far as it exists, or
is actual. But for the existentialists, the concept of existence refers primarily
to human existence (although the existentialists differed individually over the
correct account of human existence). Moreover, the term “being”, for
Maritain, refers to the object of knowledge which is initially known in an
intellectual intuition, and which is later made explicit in metaphysical
reflection. For Marcel, on the other hand, “being” in its most important sense
refers to all of those areas of experience which are inaccessible to conceptual
knowledge and which must be approached non-conceptually, by means of
secondary reflection, and which can be lost if they become the exclusive
focus of conceptual knowledge. He describes being as “what resists—or
would be what would withstand—an exhaustive analysis of the data of
experience that would try to reduce them progressively to elements that are
increasingly devoid of any intrinsic value or significance.” 25 It is important to
emphasize that the term “being” has this different meaning, or different
application, in the thought of each philosopher, for once we realize that
Maritain and Marcel are not talking about the same issue, then we begin to
suspect that their disagreement is not perhaps as great as it might initially
appear. Maritain also believed that Marcel's criticisms of the notion of the
intuition of being were misguided because Marcel failed to realize that the
intuition of being is, for Maritain, not just another experience, as it were, but a
“more fundamental and more immediate [experience] than all the rest and
relates to a primary reality already present in our entire intellectual life.” 26
But nevertheless, Maritain contends, it is an intuition, which is the root of the
search for intellectual knowledge. Maritain believes that Marcel fails to see
this because he does not quite trust the intellect enough to satisfy our search
for knowledge. 27
The main differences between Maritain and Marcel have their roots in
the issue over which both philosophers disagreed most sharply, and which
ultimately divided them in their own lifetimes. This is the issue of the right
approach to, and the correct subject matter of, philosophy. Marcel, the
existentialist, regarded abstract metaphysics with suspicion because in his
view it was too speculative, was divorced from experience, and relied too
heavily on conceptual knowledge. Maritain, the Thomist, looked on exist-
entialism with suspicion, and saw it as relativizing the key notions of being
and existence to human experience, and of irresponsibly downplaying or
ignoring reason and conceptual knowledge in favor of individual subjectivity
and freedom. Yet even on this issue, I suggest that neither philosopher is
committed to the view that the other position is untenable. 28 There is room for
some accommodation by each philosopher, at least for the concerns of the
other.
Maritain and others were suspicious of what they regarded as idealists
tendencies in Marcel's thought. There is no question that these tendencies are
present in the work of other existentialist thinkers (for example, Merleau–
Ponty, Sartre and Heidegger), but, as James Collins has observed, idealistic
tendencies in Marcel's thought “are difficult to find.” 29 Collins points out that
Marcel agrees with Maritain that the judgment of existence is the most
properly metaphysical judgment. But Marcel asks a larger question: whether
the intellect, and its operations and general approach (that is, primary ref-
lection), should not in turn be studied as a mode of being. As Collins notes,
this is an existentialist way of overcoming the primacy of epistemology (and
we have looked at this existentialist approach to epistemology in detail in this
book). It is not that Marcel is critical of Maritain's metaphysical approach, but
more that he would situate it within a study of being, rather than seeing it as
the study of being. Whereas Maritain would say the intellect is adequate to
understand the nature of being, and that a Marcelian approach runs a risk both
of idealism and of relativism.
Yet, while Maritain believes that conceptual knowledge is essential to
attain knowledge of being, and therefore of all reality, still, like Marcel, he
emphasizes the role of experience in philosophy, and even in metaphysics. He
often reminds us that reality overflows concepts, and that metaphysics itself
initially requires an experience of being, or of the fact that the world is
there. 30 It is not stretching the matter too much to suggest that, like Marcel, he
would also agree that there is an irreducible quality about this experience, and
that it is only open to minds disposed to receive it. Marcel, on the other hand,
clearly does not wish to deny the objectivity of knowledge, or to denigrate the
importance of conceptual knowledge in human experience. He explicitly
agrees with Maritain that thought is made for being as the eye is made for
light; as he puts it in Being and Having: “I do really assert that thought is
made for being as the eye is made for light (a Thomist formula). But this is a
dangerous way of talking, as it forces us to ask whether thought itself is. Here
an act of thought reflecting on itself may help us. I think, therefore, being is,
since my thought demands being; it does not contain it analytically but refers
to it. It is very difficult to get past this stage . . . ” 31 But while the objectivity
of knowledge is maintained precisely in the move to abstraction, Marcel is
keen to define both the role and the limits of conceptual knowledge in human
experience. Maritain, on the other hand, holds that an adequate conceptual
analysis of what it means to exist in general is essential in metaphysics and
epistemology, and he consequently provides a much richer account of inten-
tionality, and of the objectivity of knowledge, than Marcel, who provides little
or no account of these crucial matters. Maritain also emphasizes more than
Marcel is prepared to the importance of philosophy (conceptual thinking) for

the recognition and analysis of non-conceptual knowledge.
Marcel is not comfortable with the project of conceptual system-build-
ing in philosophy to the extent that Maritain is, and Maritain is not prepared
to emphasize experience to the extent that Marcel is, and herein lies their
fundamental disagreement. Moreover, if Marcel had provided a detailed acc-
ount of intentionality, and of the realm of conceptual knowledge, we can also
be sure that it would differ significantly from Maritain's analysis of these
matters. However, from our vantage point I am surely right in suggesting that
the differences between the two philosophers are not as significant as they
themselves seemed to regard them. For we have seen in this chapter that
Maritain and Marcel have many substantive points in common, and both
thinkers are on the same side in their philosophy of the human person, in their
epistemologies, and, of course, in their overall worldviews.
Nine
FROM AN EPISTEMOLOGICAL POINT OF

VIEW: BUBER AND MARCEL
Martin Buber's philosophy of “I-Thou” and “I-It” relationships is regarded by

many as a genuinely far-reaching breakthrough in modern thought. It is also a
very similar epistemology to that of Marcel's, which we have laid out in detail in
previous chapters. For this reason, it will prove instructive as we bring our study
to a close to provide a detailed analysis of this epistemology, and to offer some
points of comparison and contrast between Buber and Marcel (and occasionally
Heidegger as well). Many have recognized the significance of this epistemology.
Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000) has written of Buber that we would be “imm-
ensely poorer without” his fundamental insights, and pays him the significant
tribute of recording that “we are forever in his debt.” 1 Emmanuel Lévinas (1906–
1905) pays tribute to Buber's penetrating analysis of relation, and the act of
distancing. 2 In fact, Buber's identification and development of the I-Thou and the
I-It realms of knowledge is regarded as so significant that Karl Heim (1874–
1958) has been moved to describe it as a “Copernican Revolution” in philo-
sophy. 3 We see the same revolution in Marcel's thought, a revolution that
contains the seeds of a profound critique of the general direction of Continental
philosophy after Heidegger. William Ernest Hocking has suggested that Marcel's
ideas may be “the major achievement in epistemology of the present century,”
while Jeanne Delhomme observes that Marcel is the only philosopher she knows
who has tried to say what epistemology would look like within a serious person-
alist philosophy. 4
Yet Lévinas and several others have drawn attention to what they regard as
important criticisms of what may be broadly described as the epistemology of the
position developed by Buber and Marcel. While accepting the profundity
inherent in the general existentialist analysis of I-Thou relationships, and the far-
reaching significance of the idea of the ontological superiority of the I-Thou
realm of human knowledge over the I-It realm of human knowledge, many
commentators have doubts about the epistemological status of these insights. In
particular, there is the suggestion in Buber's philosophy that the I-Thou relation is
fundamentally an experienced relation, which, by its very nature, can lay no
claim to universal validity. We have seen the same criticism leveled at Marcel,
with some suggesting that the level of secondary reflection is really not
accessible to reflective thought, despite Marcel's claims to the contrary. Maurice
Friedman has suggested of Buber's theory of knowledge, for instance, that it is
characterized by its insistence on the insight that truth involves participation in

Being, and not conformity between particular propositions and that to which the
propositions refer. 5 Truth, conceived in this manner, Friedman believes, cannot
claim universal validity, but it can be exemplified and symbolized in actual life.
This in essence, according to Friedman, is what Buber's philosophical work
attempts to explain and illustrate.
The problem with this approach to truth is that there is a difficulty in
making it “objective” in the manner required by philosophers so that it can be
laid down as a body of certain knowledge available to all for examination. An
obvious criticism of Buber's view, according to Malcolm L. Diamond (1924–
1998), is that human beings can attain certain knowledge only in those matters
which do not concern the fundamental problems of human nature and human
destiny, for these fundamental problems are immersed in the waywardness of
ephemeral encounters. 6 According to Diamond, “loyalty, love, commitment to
God, man and country, are incapable of empirical verification.” 7 Diamond con-
tends that the I-Thou relation identified by Buber is one about which questions
concerning its validity continually arise because of its ephemeral, non-empirical
nature.
Hartshorne has attempted to state another problem with Buber's epist-
emology in a more formal way. He asks: “What . . . is the logical structure of the
contrast between I-Thou and I-It? [I-Thou] is a mutual or reciprocal relation,
affecting both terms. If this is made a formal requirement, then the only possible
relation with anything in the past is I-It.” 8 Lévinas raises a quite different
problem when he says that Buber's “pure spiritualism of friendship does not
correspond to the facts,” 9 and that he fails to take human individuality seriously
enough in his analysis of the I-Thou relation. Lévinas also suggests that Buber's
phenomenological descriptions are not supported by appeal to abstract principles.
These criticisms taken together may seem to count against Buber's philosophy
making any lasting contribution to the theory of knowledge.
These are fair and reasonable critical points to raise about the broad
epistemological position developed by both Buber and Marcel, yet I think that in
the end they mostly fall wide of the target. I believe these critical points actually
have their origin in deeper epistemological questions we must ask of these
philosophers. This will become clear after we have identified these deeper ques-
tions. In this chapter, I want to identify and analyze these questions primarily in
relation to Buber's thought, but we will also compare how Marcel would respond
to them, and the close similarity between their respective positions. This will
help us to bring our study to a close by further analyzing the epistemological
approach of Buber and Marcel; it will also help us to appreciate how this
approach differs from that of other European philosophers, such as Heidegger.
I want to suggest that the main questions we should ask about existentialist
epistemology are questions that get to the heart of what is distinctive about this
epistemology. These questions are: (1) if all knowledge is derived from the realm
From an Epistemological Point of View: Buber and Marcel 137
of mystery (the I-Thou realm of human experience), what is the status of

theoretical knowledge, such as philosophical, scientific, theological and mathe-
matical knowledge?; (2) Do Buber and Marcel and others who share their
epistemological approach hold that human knowledge represents the world as it
really is in itself?; (3) How are we to characterize our knowledge of the I-Thou
relation itself?; and (4) Do these philosophers even believe in “knowledge,” if
the term is understood to include a correspondence between beliefs or
propositions in our minds, and their objects in the external world? As we shall
see, Diamond's criticisms involve (1) and (4), Hartshorne's point is primarily
related to (3), and Lévinas's objections are related to (4), especially the nature of
the I-Thou relation, and also to (3). Similar questions and criticisms have been
asked of Marcel, especially concerning question (3).
I will try to illustrate in what follows that these questions are legitimate
questions, and that a quite satisfactory response to most of them can be dev-
eloped from within Buber's and Marcel's epistemological approach. In my view,
neither philosopher addresses these questions adequately in their work, or makes
their answers to them clear, and this has in small part contributed to mis-
understandings. It is the case also that these particular questions have been much
neglected in Buber and Marcel scholarship, and it is hard to find any detailed
discussion of them. 10 Yet I think it is fair to say that they are among the most
crucial questions we need to ask about Buber and Marcel's thought from an
epistemological point of view, and, since their epistemology can generally handle
them, we will see that it does represent a genuine contribution to philosophy.
Before going any further, I wish to say a word about the term “episte-
mology.” I suspect that both Buber and Marcel would be uneasy with this term,
and would be inclined to reject it. Yet I believe that it is an appropriate term to
use when discussing that aspect of their work which is our present focus. I mean
by “epistemology,” a philosophical examination into the nature of human
knowledge and justification, and despite Buber's restricted use of the term
“philosophical” to refer to a branch of the I-It realm of knowledge (as we shall
see), it will still be appropriate to describe his position as an epistemology, and to
ask of it the epistemological questions I have identified above. Of course, I also
need to emphasize that the term is not designed to trap either of these thinkers
into accepting categories they reject. (This will become clear in our discussion.)
Since we are familiar with Marcel's epistemological position, let us first provide
a brief overview of some of Buber's central ideas, before we go on to look at how
both philosophers would respond to the questions raised above.
1. Martin Buber's Epistemology
It is crucial at the outset of any consideration of Buber's general epistemological

position to realize that he begins his mature thought by drawing attention to the
basic ontological structure of human experience: “The world is twofold for man
in accordance with his twofold attitude.” 11 The twofold attitude is comprised of

the dialogical I-Thou relationship, and the monological I-It relationship. To put
the issue more clearly, these are the two ways of knowing in human experience,
and it is part of the great legacy of Buber's thought that in his analysis of human
knowing he has undertaken a realistic, accurate and philosophically valuable
account of the ways in which we arrive at our knowledge, ways which are
intimately bound up with how we experience the world.
Buber's move beyond the traditional division of the knowledge of reality
into an exclusively subject-object epistemology is developed and explained
through his phenomenological description and analysis of the I-Thou relation in
human experience. Because of space limitations, I will not spend a great deal of
time providing an exposition of Buber's account of the I-Thou relation; this part
of his thought is well known, and need not occupy us too much. Further, there
are many excellent studies of this relationship. 12 The crucial issue for my view is
the epistemological implications of his I-Thou analysis. Buber's basic claim is
that the I-Thou relation is a relation which can only be spoken with one's whole
Being, that is, it can be known only through the experience of genuine relation
with the Other. (It is important to note that Buber himself tries to restrict the
word “experience” to the I-It realm; he prefers the word “participation” when
talking about I-Thou relations. 13 ) Buber characterizes the I-Thou relation as one
in which the basic feature of the ontological structure of human existence is
revealed to the human subject. It is not, however, revealed in conceptual
knowledge, for such knowledge limits and confines, by its very nature. What this
means is that when we talk about the I-Thou relationship in conceptual terms,
something is inevitably lost in the descriptions. This is because the actual
experience of the I-Thou relation is beyond conceptual knowledge; it is
fundamentally an experienced relation. As he puts it, “Nothing conceptual
intervenes between I and Thou . . . .” 14 In the case of the I-Thou relation, any
attempt to fully express it conceptually would be futile and would serve only to
distort an experience which is inexpressible. Yet it is one of Buber's central
insights that, although inexpressible, the I-Thou relation, which, according to
him, is possible between life with others, life with nature, and life with God, can
be fully revealed and therefore “known,” in the actual experience of the relation
by the human subject. It is obvious that the realm of I-Thou relations is very
similar to what Marcel has described as the realm of mystery.
The I-Thou relation, though the primary aspect of the ontological structure
of our Being, is often eclipsed by the second, and secondary, aspect of that
ontological structure, an aspect which is characterized by I-It relations. The I-It
relation can be known fully through conceptual knowledge for it deals with
objects which have instrumental use in that they can be possessed, manipulated,
exploited, etc. Complete mastery of the relation is possible at this level, because
all reciprocity, mystery and the inexpressible otherness of the “object” is
abstracted in an act of conceptual domination. In addition, for Buber, the I-It
world, or the world of objective knowledge and therefore of philosophy, theo-

ogy, mathematics and science, is derived from the I-Thou world. 15 Since the
fundamental aspect of our ontological structure is revealed in the I-Thou relation,
it is no surprise that it is this relation that we first experience as a child. Indeed,
we long for it: “The innateness of the longing for relation is apparent even in the
earliest and dimmest stage.” 16 This meeting of the I and the Thou in the child's
experience even precedes the child's awareness of himself, according to Buber. It
is only later that the split comes in the relation, first, when I affirm my own
existence, and, second, when the second aspect of our being, the conceptual
dimension, makes itself manifest. Buber expresses it thus:
. . . the longing for relation is primary, the cupped hand into which the
being that confronts us nestles; and the relation to that, which is a word-
less anticipation of saying Thou, comes second. But the genesis of the
thing is a late product that develops out of the split of the primal encou-
nters, out of the separation of the associated partners—as does the
genesis of the I. In the beginning is the relation—as the category of
being, as readiness, as a form that reaches out to be filled, as a model of
the soul; the a priori of relation, the innate Thou. 17
This is the gradual process of the child's movement from an I-Thou world to an I-
It world, and the child gradually establishes for himself or herself the world of
“objective” reality. Nevertheless, this objective world, according to Buber, while
playing its own central role in the acquisition of knowledge and in human
experience generally, is dependent upon and derived from the prior meeting with
the Thou. The danger is that in the move from I-Thou to I-It the original structure
of Being is likely to be forgotten and the I-It world established as the realm of
truth. Buber's thought on this point is not that far removed from Heidegger's
quest to retrieve the meaning of Being from our state of forgetfulness, a state
which is motivated by our obsession for conceptual mastery of experience. Of
this, we shall have more to say later.
It is helpful at this point to distinguish between two senses of the word
“knowledge,” and to point out how they are significant for understanding Buber's
epistemological position. Buber does not make this distinction himself explicitly,
yet it will serve to help us answer our question about whether Buber believes in
knowledge. We can distinguish between knowledge at the I-It level, and
knowledge at the I-Thou level. At the I-It level, the term “knowledge” describes
the relationship between the beliefs in our mind and the objects in the external
world. So, for example, at this level I can say I know that I have just graded a
stack of exams. My belief that I graded the exams corresponds to what actually
happened in the external world. I have knowledge of this fact. This is the way the
term “knowledge” is usually understood in modern epistemology. Yet, at the
level of the I-Thou experience, I think Buber would allow that we have
“knowledge” of the I-Thou experience too. However, it is not a propositional

knowledge, or a knowledge that involves agreement between our beliefs and the
objects in the world. It is not an agreement between my belief that the I-Thou
experience is real and profound, and the fact that it is real and profound, for
example. It is a deeper kind of knowledge than this—where I know that the I-
Thou experience is real and profound because I actually experience it, not
because I am matching up a propositional belief with an experience. In this sense,
this second type of knowledge is non-conceptual, but nevertheless real and an
essential part of human existence. This is perhaps Buber's main argument in the
whole of his thought.
Yet a second observation is also crucial. This is the point that I-It know-
ledge is derived from I-Thou knowledge. 18 So Buber concludes that I-It know-
ledge is not the only type of knowledge, and it is not even the main type of
knowledge. We might put this differently by saying that the realm of I-Thou is
ontologically primary for Buber, in the sense that all other types of knowledge
must be understood in terms of it, and it is not understood in terms of any other
realm of knowledge. However, the actual nature of the derivation of I-It
knowledge from I-Thou knowledge is a key (and controversial) claim, and must
be elaborated further.
How is the I-It world in general derived from the I-Thou world? Buber's
answer to this question is very similar to that of many other existentialist phil-
osophers, including Marcel, who held that human subjectivity was not only
important, but that it had profound epistemological significance. While the
existentialists differed among themselves over how to develop this view, Buber
holds that we first participate in reality, and then conceptual knowledge involves
a stepping back from or an abstraction from this more fundamental level of
human existence. According to Buber, the subject lives at the level of I-Thou, the
level of Being, and at this level is not primarily a thinking subject. This realm is
ontologically basic; it is the realm where the subject's experiences take place at
what we earlier called a level of existential contact, and not at the level of
abstract analysis. The (conceptual) meanings of our experiences at the basic level
of I-Thou can later, and then only partially, and often with a lot of difficulty
(depending on the subject matter), be abstracted by the intellect and presented as
“objects” of knowledge, which could then be understood as part of an objective
analysis or demonstration. In short, the basic level of I-Thou is not fully
accessible to conceptual or theoretical thinking. This is important because there
is a strong tendency in modern thought to reduce everything to the level of I-It.
At the level of I-It, we operate with conceptual generalizations and the use
of abstract thinking. This is the kind of reflection which seeks causal connections
and which is operative in the sciences, and “theoretical thinking” of any kind. It
involves a “standing back” from our involvement with experience, with nature,
with others and with God (hence Buber's critique of traditional theology, which
he believed too often turns God into an It; he says that we should be concerned
not with the idea of God but with the experience of God 19 ), and engages in an
inquiry which proceeds by means of abstract concepts, which have “objective”
content. One of Buber's main epistemological claims is that the level of I-It
cannot give an accurate or full description of the level of I-Thou; the I-Thou level
is therefore superior to I-It.
The experience of the I-Thou relation for Buber also indicates that it is in
intersubjective relations, that is, in the meeting between I and Thou, that the I
truly finds self-”knowledge,” or self-affirmation. As I become I, I say Thou.
This again affirms the absolute primacy of the I-Thou relation as the basic feature
of the ontological structure of human existence. Without the I-Thou experience,
there is no knowledge, the I does not fully know itself, and conceptual know-
ledge is deficient because it is unaware of its origin from and dependence upon
the I-Thou relation. In this case a person who possesses conceptual mastery of
the objective world in isolation from the I-Thou experience, or who sets up the I-
It world as the primary ontological realm, has cut themselves off from Being,
and, therefore, from truth.
2. Buber and Marcel on the Epistemological Questions
Given this brief characterization of the fundamentals of Buber's “dialogical”

philosophy, we are in a position from which to focus on the specific epist-
emological issues raised by his analysis. My aim here is to consider—assuming
that this general analysis is broadly correct—how this type of epistemology
would deal with our three remaining questions. What about our question, as to
what is the status of theoretical knowledge, such as philosophical or scientific
knowledge, if it is derived from the I-Thou realm? This question gets its import
from two concerns: first, what does it mean to say that such knowledge is
derived, and second, does the fact that such knowledge is derived compromise in
any way its claim to objectivity? While Buber does not directly address these
concerns, I believe his position on the first point is broadly similar to Marcel's
and Heidegger's.
According to Marcel’s view, the subject is fundamentally an embodied
being-in-a-situation, and is not essentially (in the metaphysical sense) a thinking
or knowing subject. 20 This is because the subject is always located in a specific
context by virtue of its particular embodied situation in the world. Therefore, the
objects which are the subjects of conceptual analyses in any kind of abstract
thinking are first of all experienced in the actual world. Then they are abstracted
and presented in a series of concepts as objects for all to consider. For example,
take this desk that I am now writing on. I experience (that is, know) this desk
primarily at the level of existential contact, and not at the level of theoretical
thinking. In this sense, the desk has a particular meaning for me that it does not
have for anybody else. In this way, my context as an experiencing subject defines
to an extent how I experience objects in the world.
Marcel elaborates this view in his distinctions between primary and

secondary reflection, and between problem and mystery, as we have seen. 21 We
noted that he argues that the realm of conceptual knowledge (or primary ref-
lection) typically deals with problems of various kinds. Problems require
conceptual generalizations, abstractions, and an appeal to what is universal and
verifiable in human experience. However, the realm of the problematic cannot
give an adequate account of the being-in-a-situation of the human person, the
person's fundamental involvement in the world at the level of personal
experience. This involvement takes place, according to Marcel, in the realm of
mystery, a realm where the distinction between subject and object breaks down.
Many of our most valued and profound experiences occur at this level, for
example, of hope, love, fidelity, and faith. These experiences are all mysterious
because they intimately involve the questioner in such a way that the meaning of
the experience cannot be fully conveyed by means of an abstract conceptual
analysis. From the philosophical point of view, such experiences can be recov-
ered by means of secondary reflection, a general term which refers to both the act
of critical reflection on primary reflection, and the realization or existential
assurance of the realm of mystery, beyond primary reflection.
Heidegger holds that dasein's (human being's) fundamental ontological state
is that of a being-in-the-world. 22 This way of experiencing the world is
ontologically basic, and the “theoretical attitude” involves a standing back from,
or abstraction from, this basic level, and is derived from it. Heidegger illustrates
this point further by appeal to the distinction between the realms of ready-to-
hand, and present-at-hand. At the level of being-in-the-world, we deal with the
objects of our experience in practical, everyday ways, as “equipment” or as
“tools” for our projects. They are said to be “ready-to-hand.” In my office, for
example, my desk becomes part of a totality; it tends to disappear as an “object”;
I am usually not even “aware” of the characteristics of the desk as I become
“absorbed” in my various projects (for example, grading exams). As with Marcel,
it is crucial to note that I do not simply regard the desk as being in a context; it is
in a context by virtue of its function in the totality of my office surroundings. Nor
am I regarding the desk from the theoretical or conceptual attitude when I am
engaged in a particular project. Yet the ordinary course of human experience
will prompt me from time to time to regard the desk from the theoretical point of
view; it might become “conspicuous” by breaking, for example. In this case, I
will abstract from my context of grading, and look upon the desk as “present-at-
hand,” as isolated from the context in which it had a more fundamental meaning.
Heidegger goes on to argue that once we understand in detail the nature of these
two realms of ready-to-hand and present-at-hand, and their relationship, our
approach to epistemology, among other things, will be radically changed. Now
Buber, I think, would broadly agree with the thrust of both these accounts by
Marcel and Heidegger.
So, applying this general approach to Buber, what happens at the level of
abstraction is that I set aside all that is personal and contextual in my experience
of the desk, and I look at the desk solely as an abstract object. I have a concept of
the desk that captures essential features of the desk—its shape, color, texture,
what it is made of, etc. This is the abstract meaning of “this desk” captured in
conceptual knowledge, and, of course, concepts have universal, public content.
This is why everybody has essentially the same abstract concept of the desk. We
could move to a further level of abstraction to the concept of “desk in general,”
and so forth. (This is the level of I-It for Buber, the level of primary reflection for
Marcel, and the level of present-at-hand for Heidegger). So my abstract under-
standing of the desk is then derived from the more fundamental way I experience
it, and represents a particular way of looking. We might say that for Buber (as for
Heidegger and Marcel) we understand the world from the top down (that is, first
from the experience of the desk at the top, all the way down to the conceptual
abstraction of the desk), rather than from the bottom up (from the conceptual
abstraction of the desk as basic up to our experience of the desk).
This brings us to the second concern, which gets to the heart of the question
about the actual status of conceptual knowledge. We must ask of these
philosophers whether they believe that theoretical knowledge is objectively true?
Or does it merely represent a perspective on reality, perhaps one of a variety of
different perspectives, all of which might have a certain legitimacy? This
question is absolutely crucial, especially since many continental philosophers
give the latter answer to this question. Do Buber and Marcel believe that
scientific theories, and by extension, philosophy, theology, etc., all simply
represent different ways of looking at the world, whose content could vary
depending on who is doing the looking and what they are looking at? In short,
are they committing to a position which says that scientific theories (for example)
are relative to the context, or even conceptual framework, of the individual, and
so have no claim to objective validity (as Lyotard suggests in The Postmodern
Condition)? I think this is one of those areas in which Buber's thought in
particular is vague, and he does run the risk of coming too close to a kind of
relativism. He certainly appears at times to relativize all truth claims to the
human perceiver who is making the claims, such as in his description of the
linden tree, where he suggests that the experience of the subject defines the
description. And in Between Man and Man we find the following remark: “[The
philosopher] can know the wholeness of the person and through it the wholeness
of man only when he does not leave his subjectivity out and does not remain an
untouched observer.” 23 These kind of observations in Buber's work are amb-
iguous and hard to interpret, and to some suggest a relativistic interpretation.
However, let us not forget that he is perhaps led into this by his attempt to
emphasize that conceptual knowledge is neither the only, nor the main, category
of knowledge. But not only does he run the risk of relativism (an impossible
position to defend), but he also runs the risk of committing what I call “the sin of
relativism”—contradicting himself by making objectively true (context-
independent) claims, and then claiming that it is illegitimate to make such claims.
Even one of Buber's best known commentators seems to think Buber comes close
to relativism. 24
While Buber is guilty of not facing up to this problem in his work, and also
of doing much to encourage the interpretation that he is a relativist, I believe he
did not see himself as a relativist on this issue, and that he can establish a fairly
adequate defense against the charge of relativism. 25 One of the main reasons he
escapes the charge of relativism, and can be given the benefit of the doubt is
because of his commitment to key distinctions and insights in his work. For there
can be no doubt that he is claiming that the I-Thou relation is objectively real,
that it is distinct from the I-It relation, and also that the I-It relation is not the
main way to knowledge. These are all objectively true, context-independent,
claims; he clearly does not believe that we can reject them from some other
epistemological standpoint. We might call them essence distinctions, as are all
the substantive (metaphysical) claims he makes in his description of the I-Thou
relation, and of the I-It realm, and so on. He is not trying to hide the fact that he
is making these claims, or attempting to obfuscate the issues by using an
excessively obscure writing style (like the deconstructionists). Yet we might still
wonder if he ends up in relativism about theoretical knowledge.
I think that Buber's position can be defended against the charge that it leads
to relativism about scientific, philosophical, and theological knowledge in the
same way that Marcel defends his view. Marcel's position, as we illustrated in
chapter 3, preserves the objectivity of knowledge. Buber can adopt a similar type
of approach to that of Marcel. For Buber can argue that the level of I-It is the
level of objective knowledge. This is because the concepts employed at the
theoretical level are objective in two crucial senses. First, they represent essential
features of the objects of experience (at an abstract level) as they really are in the
objects, and second, these essential features are also objective in the crucial sense
that everyone understands them in the same way. So, to continue with our
example of the desk, my (and indeed everybody's) conceptual analysis of the
desk will involve concepts which adequately represent essential features of the
object in question as they really are, for example, the shape of the desk, its meas-
urements, texture, what it is made of, its features, etc. Also, my wife (and indeed
anybody) will understand conceptually these features in the same way as I
understand them. Hence, this knowledge is objective because, first, it adequately
represents essential features of the objects of experience just as they are in
themselves, and, secondly, it represents these features in the same way for all,
regardless of each person's particular experiences at the I-Thou level. In The
Eclipse of God, Buber writes that “a skeptical verdict about the ability of
philosophy to lead to and contain truth is in no way here implied.” 26
Buber can also defend the objectivity of theories in the same way. Theories
consist of organized bodies of concepts, between which there will usually be
complicated logical relationships; but these concepts are still abstracted from
experience. So theories too will be objectively true (if they adequately represent
reality) in the sense just described. A scientific theory, for example, would be
objectively true if the parts of reality represented by the concepts utilized in the
theory are represented just as they really are. Of course, theories in which the
concepts did not match up with reality would be false, would misrepresent
reality. Furthermore, everyone's conceptual understanding will usually not be at
the same level; clearly a Heisenberg would understand the atom at the conceptual
level in a much deeper way than most. But the main point is that the concepts in
our thinking—at whatever level of abstraction—do, if our thinking is correct and
true, adequately and objectively represent the objects of which they are the
concepts. This is just a sketch of a way in which Buber can argue against the
charge of relativism, but I believe it is a fruitful one, and one consistent with his
thought.
This discussion naturally moves us on to our question of whether human
knowledge represents the way the world really is, for Buber and for Marcel? This
question can be quite tricky for philosophers coming from this existentialist
epistemological standpoint because an important distinction must be made before
they can properly address it. (Otherwise, we will be guilty of implicitly assuming
that the I-It level is in fact the main level of knowledge.) If this general
epistemology is correct, I suggest that the meaning of the phrase “things as they
are in themselves” will now have to be rethought in the way I suggested in
chapter 6. This is because the answer to the question about “things as they are in
themselves” will become relative to the point of view we take, either that of I-It
knowledge, or that of the I-Thou knowledge. For if a question about things as
they are in themselves is asked from the point of view of conceptual knowledge
(the “theoretical attitude”), then a description of our abstract concept of the thing
will be sufficient for an understanding of the nature of the thing. In this way,
Buber is similarly critical of the Cartesian approach. He observes that: “The I in
the Cartesian ego cogito is not the living, body soul-person whose corporeality
has just been disregarded by Descartes as being a matter of doubt. It is the
subject of consciousness, supposedly the only function which belongs entirely to
our nature. In lived concreteness, in which consciousness is the first violin but
not the conductor, this ego is not present at all.” 27 That is to say, if we believe, as
Descartes did, that the “theoretical attitude” is the primary way to knowledge,
and that this involves selecting those features of things in the external world
which are naturally presented in conceptual knowledge, then a description of our
abstract concepts is what is required when we ask a question about things as they
are in themselves. If, however, we ask what are things like in themselves from
the point of view of the I-Thou relation, we are asking for a phenomenological
description of the meaning of the thing in the external world as it is defined in
relation to a particular subject. There is no guarantee that this meaning will be
the same for all, although it will be similar, though not identical. This is because
(1) many people have similar situations and experiences, though never identical
situations and experiences, and (2) the abstract analysis of the object will be the
same for all, as I pointed out above. Of these two perspectives, I-Thou and I-It,
the first one is nearest the truth for Buber and Marcel, because the second is
derived from it, and the first is derived from no other “point of view” of the
objects of our experience.
This brings us to our final question about this new approach to epis-
emology: how are we to characterize our knowledge of the I-Thou realm itself
(and also of the I-It realm)? In short, what kind of knowledge is Marcel trying to
communicate to us in his philosophical works? What kind of knowledge is Buber
trying to communicate to us in his philosophical works? Is it I-Thou knowledge,
or I-It (propositional) knowledge? The answer is obviously the latter, since the
important point is that the I-Thou relation can only be fully known in experience,
and that we can have only an inadequate conceptual grasp of it at the level of I-It.
This means then that philosophy is not unnecessary or irrelevant to a
consideration of the I-Thou realm. This point is of great importance in any
adequate treatment of Buber's epistemology, in particular. Buber is obviously a
philosopher, and has communicated his insights in a philosophical way. So
Diamond's odd claim (noted at the beginning of the chapter) that in human life
the truth about human nature cannot be made “objective” already appears
problematic. In fact, Diamond seems unduly worried that because Buber's I-Thou
relation is not empirically verifiable, it will be rejected as not being philo-
sophically defendable. But why should empirical verification be the criterion of
truth? Hasn't Buber shown that there is in fact a deeper and more fundamental
feature of the ontological structure of human knowing which cannot be
objectified in a manner that would make it obviously verifiable independent of
the experience? However, this is not to say that we cannot reason objectively
about the I-Thou relation, nor that every claim to inexpressible experience
(including fanatical claims) must be tolerated. After all, isn't Buber in his
philosophical works reasoning objectively about the I-Thou relation? There is
also a confusion in Lévinas's reading of Buber concerning this issue. Lévinas
asserts that Buber's descriptions are all based on the concrete reality of
perception and do not require an appeal to abstract principles for their just-
ification. 28 But this seems an incorrect rendering of Buber's view, for what else is
Buber's account of the I-Thou relation but an abstract principle, or attempt to
convey something of this relation, on a philosophical level? Indeed, in his
concern for the structure of the I-Thou experience, Lévinas seems to forget that
the I-It experience also has a structure (“the double structure of human
existence,” as Buber puts it 29 ), and that the relationship between I-Thou and I-It
has a structure, and this oversight tends to distract him from an appreciation of
the fundamental philosophical position that Buber is advancing.
It is true that Buber cannot describe fully what the I-Thou relation involves
because this realm must ultimately be experienced to be truly known.
Nevertheless, he can to some extent describe the structure of human experience
philosophically to reveal that I-Thou relations are possible, valuable and onto-
logically superior to the I-It relations. It is then up to us to recover, or retrieve,
this experience for ourselves. In short, the answer to the question of how we can
know the I-Thou realm since we cannot think it, is that it must, after the
philosopher has identified the I-Thou relation in his or her experience, be
“thought,” “inadequately conceptualized”, “approached” in the I-It realm, where,
of course, the intellect, and philosophy, operate. It is possible, that is, to describe
or conceptualize certain experiences (albeit inadequately) which must ultimately
be experienced to be fully known. It is possible to form at least an inadequate
concept of the I-Thou experience to the extent that it can be discussed at a
philosophical level. This is exactly what Buber is attempting in his philosophy.
This is a point that is missed by Diamond, as Buber himself points out:
I-It finds its highest concentration and clarification in philosophical

knowledge, but that in no way means that this knowledge contains noth-
ing other than I-It, is nothing other than I-It. . . . That which discloses
itself to me from time to time in the I-Thou relationship can only
become such knowledge through transmission into the I-It sphere . . . 30
This is an excellent statement by Buber of the general position outlined above,

and illustrates that Diamond has failed to appreciate the epistemological depth of
Buber's view.
Buber's identification of the features of the ontological structure of human
experience, which is the foundation of his general epistemological position,
makes clear the inappropriateness of Hartshorne's request for the logical structure
of the contrast between I-Thou and I-It. Hartshorne, in approaching Buber's
ontology in terms of its “logical structure,” is in danger of making the world of I-
It, of “objective” knowledge (that is, of logic, the natural and social sciences, and
philosophy) the primary ontological realm of knowledge. 31 Whereas, for Buber,
the I-It realm is a necessary, but secondary, area of experience dependent upon
and subservient to the I-Thou dialogical relationship (in the way described
above). For the fact is that I-Thou cannot be judged on the basis of any system of
I-It, because, as Friedman has put it:
[I-It systems] . . . observe [the] phenomena after they have already taken
their place in the categories of human knowing . . . It excludes the really
direct and present knowing of I-Thou. This knowing . . . is itself the
ultimate criterion for the reality of the I-Thou relation. 32
Conceptual knowledge, which belongs to the I-It realm, represents a secondary

level of knowing precisely because it is the I-Thou relation that represents the
primary mode of our ontological structure. It is in this mode that we come to
know the world, and it is only then that we can come to describe the experiences
in conceptual knowledge. I-It knowledge is, in fact, the “objectification” of the

real meeting that takes place in relation to human beings and their world in the
realms of nature, social relations, art and religion. 33 If this is the case, it is
obvious that something of the experience will inevitably be lost in the transition
to conceptual knowledge. The similarity here to Bergsonianism is obvious. But
more of that later. It is clear, however, that it is only in the I-It realm of
conceptual knowledge that the I-Thou would become an I-It. This means that we
have an inadequate conceptual grasp of the experience, not that we have made
the experience into an It. The experience is independent of the concept insofar as
it is an experience, and there is no reason, pace Hartshorne, that the experience
could not be continuously sustained over a period of time. It is important to
emphasize that Buber is not saying that we have an experience and then we
abstract from it, and something is lost in the abstraction. This is a trivial truth. He
is saying that our fundamental involvement is at the level of I-Thou, and all
conceptual knowledge is an abstraction from this level. This has implications for
the nature of abstract knowledge in general, specifically that it is not the most
basic form of knowledge.
3. The Question of Ontological Priority
The other central question about both Buber and Marcel is whether they are right
in their claims about the I-Thou realm of knowledge and its superiority over the
I-It realm, about the level of mystery and its superiority over the level of
problems. Their defense of this position is rendered problematic to some extent
since they must appeal partly to an experience to convey the point, and not to a
conceptual argument. How can these thinkers show that this emphasis on mystery
and the I-Thou realm in philosophy is, in fact, the correct account of the
ontological structure of human beings? The answer it seems to me is that we
cannot “prove” it, but that the I-Thou relation must be experienced for oneself,
and then one will have all the assurance one needs. But this is likely to be of little
value as a response to the skeptical philosopher. And we have the related
problem of finding a way to rule out other experiences being claimed as I-Thou
experiences. One area Diamond is particularly worried about with regard to
Buber's position is fanatical nationalism: “Uncurbed by the cold light of detached
I-It knowledge, it runs rampant, wreaking havoc throughout the world.” 34 What
is needed here is a more detailed description of what is involved in the I-Thou
relation so that it can be more easily recognized in its manifestations in our
experiences, and also a description of those experiences that are not I-Thou
experiences. Buber especially has not been as forthcoming on these matters as we
would wish. This is partly because of the fact that he nowhere gives a sustained,
full description of the I-Thou relation.
Marcel, however, has been more forthcoming, and it is interesting to
explore the manner in which he attempts to circumvent this problem in his
similar epistemology. Marcel, in his division of human knowing into secondary

reflection (I-Thou) and primary reflection (I-It), attempts to describe the former,
superior realm in terms of some concrete examples of recurrent central human
experiences, love, fidelity, hope, and faith. He does this throughout his work, but
most profoundly in his plays, where his artistic ability is obviously appropriate to
the attempt to express the inexpressible. 35 Indeed, Marcel makes a penetrating
remark in a discussion of Buber's work:
. . . the fundamental intuition of Buber remains to my mind absolutely

correct. But the whole question is to know how it can be translated into
discourse without being denatured. It is this transposition which raises
the most serious difficulties, and therein probably lies the fundamental
reason why the discovery of Feuerbach recalled by Buber remained so
long without fruit . . . In my Journal Métaphysique I attempted to show
by a concrete example how this authentic meeting manifests itself phen-
omenologically. 36
Marcel's attempt at a phenomenological description of the I-Thou relation and of

a phenomenological and philosophical account of the I-It realm, and its relation
to the I-Thou realm, seems to be a fruitful way to proceed in an elaboration of
Buber's insights. In this manner, the correct I-Thou relations can be specified and
the pseudo-relations recognized and the philosophical account of the ontological
structure of human knowing can be made manifest. Buber has recognized (as the
following remark illustrates), as did Marcel, that his own (inadequate) account of
the relation between I-It and I-Thou and of the nature of the I-Thou relation will
lead to difficulties of the kind mentioned by Diamond:
No system was suitable for what I had to say . . . I witnessed for

experience and appealed to experience. The experience for which I
witnessed is, naturally, a limited one. But it is not to be understood as a
“subjective” one. I have tested it through my appeal and test it ever
anew. I say to him who listens to me: “It is your experience. Recollect
it, and what you cannot recollect, dare to attain it as experience.” But he
who seriously declines to do it, I take him seriously. His declining is
my problem . . . I have no teaching. I point to reality. 37
Perhaps some will find this answer in the end not quite satisfactory, and it is
evident that neither philosopher has fully clarified the implications of this epist-
emology. Yet I want to suggest that the genesis of a new approach is obvious.
Diamond's general misreading of this new epistemology in Buber is now
clear. Diamond argues that when the presentness of the I-Thou relation has faded
and the self is again in the I-It realm questions regarding the validity of the I-
Thou encounter emerge again. 38 This is a criticism we can also level at Marcel,
of course, that the realm of mystery is too fleeting to provide an epistemological

foundation for human knowledge. Indeed Diamond seems to regard the I-Thou
relation as an esoteric experience, the realm of mystery as a fleeting realm. He
suggests that the I-Thou experience is a fleeting, almost momentary state which
cannot be present over long intervals, and also that it is possible to reach a stage
when we are no longer experiencing, but recalling (conceptually) the experience,
in such a way that we actually doubt the validity of the experience. But is this the
kind of experience Buber has in mind? Who would say that Diamond's account is
an accurate characterization of human love, for example? Do we immediately
forget the experience and assurance of love when the experience is over? When
is the experience over? Is love fleeting and momentary? It seems that love, for
example, is just the type of experience that is sustained over a long period, that is
inexpressible, and that is its own assurance. Similarly, is Diamond's account an
accurate description of human fidelity (which we discussed above in chapter 5)?
Although fidelity may not be forever (but of course it could be), it can hardly be
described as fleeting, or as something we are unsure of when we come to reflect
on it in the conceptual realm. Like love, we are sure of the experience, it has a
certain permanence to it, and it does seem to carry its own assurance. This is the
nature of experiences apposite to our primary ontological mode.
It is interesting to speculate on why Buber's and Marcel's insights did not
have more influence on European philosophy if they really do contribute to our
understanding of the ontological structure of human beings. Why hasn't this
approach to philosophy had a wider influence? My view is that Buber's and
Marcel's philosophical position would have become the dominant philosophical
movement in European thought had not Heidegger developed a remarkably
similar view (as we have seen), except for Heidegger's emphasis on the
interpretative nature of human understanding, which led him toward epist-
emological relativism, a position which I have argued both Buber and Marcel
avoid. Heidegger's view was to have great influence, and it is not uncommon to
read statements like this one made by Josef Bleicher:
Heidegger's monumental re-direction of philosophy rests on counter-

posing . . . propositional truth with another kind: aletheia (disclosure).
Heidegger hereby opened up a dimension of experience more fund-
amental than that of the methodical acquisition of beings. 39
At first sight this reads very like a description of Buber's position, and of course
it is, since it was Buber who first opened up this new area, not Heidegger, I and
Thou being published five years before Being and Time. Yet Buber fails to con-
sider the whole question of the objectivity of knowledge, including the crucial
matter of how we might defend this position against a hermeneutical view like
Heidegger's.
I hope this discussion of the existentialist approach to knowledge as repre-
sented by Buber and Marcel has served to illustrate the key epistemological
questions raised by their position, how they might respond to them, and that
criticisms of their view are often superficial and do not do justice to the
profundity of their insights. This later failure is in part due to the fact that neither
Marcel nor Buber pay sufficient attention to the full articulation of their
epistemological insights, and especially to how their approach differs from work
in other epistemological traditions. This book has been an attempt to further
develop their epistemological insights and to make a contribution to the larger
discussion. As I see it, the task of European philosophy in the coming century
must be to rediscover the profound insights for human knowledge contained in
the work of Buber and Marcel and explicate them in a phenomenological
epistemology and ontology.
NOTES
Chapter One
1. See H. Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement: An Historical Intro-

duction (The Hague, Holland: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960), Vol. II, p. 443.
2. See Gabriel Marcel, MBI, Ch. 1, especially pp. 1–4; also CF, pp. 3–6. For an
interesting analysis of Marcel's writing style, see Teresa Reed, “Aspects of Marcel's
Essays,” Renascence, Vol. LV, No. 3 (Spring 2003), pp. 211–227.
3. MBI, p. 46.
4. See Fr Gerald Hanratty, “The Theistic Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel,” in his
Studies in Gnosticism and in the Philosophy of Religion (Dublin: Four Courts Press,
1997), p. 160.
5. K.R. Hanley, “A Journey to Consciousness: Gabriel Marcel's Relevance for the
Twenty-First-Century Classroom,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Vol.
80:3 (2006), p. 461.
6. See the remark by Jean Hering quoted in Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological
Movement, p. 421.
7. See, for example, MBI, p. 94; also CF, p. 46, p. 62.
8. See BH, p. 151.
9. CF, p. 65.
10. See MBI, pp. 20ff.
11. Ibid. p. 20.
12. See MBI, p. 21.
13. See MMS, p. 1.
14. The critical approach to Cartesianism can be found in a number of works in
continental philosophy. See M. Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. J. MacQuarrie & E.
Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), especially Part III, Section B; M.
Merleau-Ponty, The Structure of Behavior, trans. A.L. Fisher (Boston: Beacon Press,
1963), especially Ch.IV; also his Primacy of Perception, trans. J.M. Edie (St. Louis,
MO: Washington U.P., 1964); see Karl Jaspers, Leonardo, Descartes, Max Weber
(New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1964); and J.P. Sartre, Being and Nothingness (New
York: Washington Square Press, 1997 ed.), and The Transcendence of the Ego: An
Existentialist Theory of Consciousness (New York: Hill & Wang, 1991 ed.).
15. For an overview of some of the motivations which helped to shape modern
epistemology, see Charles Taylor, “Overcoming Epistemology” in K. Baynes, J.
Bohman and T. McCarthy (eds.), After Philosophy: End or Transformation?
(Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1987), pp. 465–489.
16. H. Dreyfus, Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger's Being and Time,
Division 1 (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1991), p. 60.
17. MBI, p. 18.
18. See Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in E.S. Haldane and G.R.T.
Ross (eds.), The Philosophical Works of Descartes (London: Cambridge U.P., 1975
ed.), Vol. 1, pp. 131–199, especially Meditation I.
19. See ibid., pp. 148–149.
20. For further discussion of this point, see S.V. Keeling, Descartes (London:
Oxford U.P., 1968), pp. 124ff.
21. Dreyfus, Being-in-the-World, p. 45.
22. BH, p. 170 (my emphasis).
23. Keeling, Descartes, p. 174.
24. Haldane and Ross, The Philosophical Works of Descartes, Vol. 1, p. 237.
25. See Keeling, Descartes, p. 174.
26. See A. Kenny, Descartes: A Study of His Philosophy (New York: Random
House, 1968), Chapter V.
27. See Keeling, Descartes, pp. 174ff.
28. See Haldane and Ross, The Philosophical Works of Descartes, Vol.1, pp. 154ff.
For a slightly different interpretation, see M. Wilson, Descartes (London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1978), pp. 78ff.
29. See Keeling, Descartes, pp. 125ff for a fine exposition of this example.
30. BH, p. 170.
31. Haldane and Ross, The Philosophical Works of Descartes, Vol.1., p. 144.
32. Ibid., p. 145.
33. Ibid., p. 153.
34. See CF, p. 9; also EO, pp. 68–70; also MBI, p. 90.
35. On this point, see Dallas Willard, Logic and the Objectivity of Knowledge: A
Study in Husserl's Early Philosophy (Athens, Ohio: Ohio U.P., 1984), p. 232.
36. MJ, p. 325 (second emphasis added).
37. See Gabriel Marcel, MBII, p. 24.
39. Ibid., p. 249.
40. Ibid., p. 41.
41. MJ, p. 40.
43. CF, p. 65.
Chapter Two
1. H. Dreyfus, Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger's Being and

Time, Division 1 (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1991), p. 61.
2. MBI, p. 50.
3. See R. Zaner, The Problem of Embodiment (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971
ed.), pp. 22ff for an excellent, but different, organization of the main issues in Marcel's
phenomenological analysis of the body. See also E.W. Straus and M.A. Machado,
“Gabriel Marcel's Notion of Incarnate Being” in P.A. Schilpp and L.E. Hahn (eds.),
The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel (LaSalle: Open Court, 1989), pp. 123–158.
4. MBI, p. 94.
5. See ibid pp. 86ff; also CF, pp. 18ff.
7. See EO, pp. 65ff.
Notes 155
8. See EO, p. 65. For further discussion of Elizabeth’s criticism of Descartes, see
P.A. Bertocci, “Descartes and Marcel on the Person and His Body: A Critique,”
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol.LXVIII (1967–68), p. 216.
10. See EO, p. 69.
12. Ibid., p. 100; also EO, pp. 65ff.
13. EO, p. 65.
14. John B. O’Malley, The Fellowship of Being: An Essay on the Concept of the
Person in the Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966), p.
25.
15. EO, p. 67.
16. CF, p. 20.
17. Ibid., p. 23; also EO, p. 71.
18. MBI, p. 101.
19. Ibid., p. 92.
20. See ibid., pp. 90ff, especially p. 93.
21. Ibid., p. 93.
22. Descartes in D.J. Bronstein (ed.), The Essential Works of Descartes, (New York:
Bantam Books, 1961), p. 220 (my emphasis).
23. P. Bertocci, “Descartes and Marcel on the Person and His Body: A Critique,”
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, p. 217.
24. CF, p. 15.
25. See EO, pp. 60ff; also CF, pp. 24ff.
26. K. Gallagher, The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel (New York: Fordham
University Press, 1975), p. 20.
27. MBI, pp. 194ff.
28. Ibid., p. 104 (emphasis in last sentence added).
29. Ibid., pp. 114ff.
30. Ibid., p. 101.
31. EO, p. 72.
32. Ibid., p. 68.
33. Ibid.
34. See ibid, p. 68.
35. Ibid, p. 69.
36. See BH, pp. 104ff.
37. Ibid., p. 96.
38. S. Kruks, Situation and Human Existence: Freedom, Subjectivity and Society
(London: Unwin, 1990), p. 12.
39. CF, p. 22.
40. Two works which gesture in this direction, but which do not provide detailed
discussions of particular cases, are: E.W. Straus and M.A. Machado, “Gabriel Marcel's
Notion of Incarnate Being,” in P.A. Schilpp and L.E. Hahn (eds.), The Philosophy of
Gabriel Marcel, pp. 123–158; and D. Applebaum, Contact and Attention: The
Anatomy of Gabriel Marcel's Metaphysical Method (Lanham: University Press of
America, 1986).
41. BH, p. 10.
42. See John Richardson, Existential Epistemology: A Heideggerian Critique of the

Cartesian Project (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), p. 14.
43. EO, p. 52.
44. See Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception, and Ricoeur's remarks in
Gabriel Marcel, TWB, p. 222.
45. See CF, p. 27 for a discussion of the notion of “feeling at home” in a particular
place. See MBI, p. 61, for a discussion of the raspberries example. See also D. Cooper,
Existentialism: A Reconstruction (London: Blackwell, 1990, p. 80.
46. CF, p. 21 (my emphasis).
47. MBI, p. 134.
48. CF, p. 83.
49. HV, p. 11.
50. MBI, p. 134.
51. Ibid., p. 46.
52. CF, p. 56; also MBI, pp. 205ff.
53. MBII, p. 24.
54. CF, p. 29.
55. CF, p. 65.
56. See M. Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. J. MacQuarrie & E. Robinson (New
York: Harper & Row, 1962), p. 414; also J. Richardson, Existential Epistemology, pp.
49ff.
57. K. Gallagher, The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel, p. 13.
Chapter Three
1. See M. Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. by J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson

(New York: Harper and Row, 1962), pp. 414ff..
2. John Richardson, Existential Epistemology, Existential Epistemology: A Heid-
eggerian Critique of the Cartesian Project (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), p. 49.
3. See Roland Barthes, Mythologies, trans. A. Lavers (New York: Hill and Wang,
1972).
4. See Jacques Derrida Of Grammatology, trans. by G. Spivak (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins, 1976); Writing and Difference, trans. by A. Bass (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1978); Dissemination, trans. by B. Johnson (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1981); and Margins of Philosophy, trans. by A. Bass (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1982).
5. Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, p. 7; Roland Barthes, Image-Music-Text,
trans. by S. Heath (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977), p. 147.
6. Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, p. 95.
7. Derrida, Of Grammatology, p. 75.
8. Derrida in an interview with Richard Kearney in Kearney's Dialogues with
Contemporary Continental Thinkers (Manchester: Manchester U.P., 1984), p. 117.
9. For a more detailed critique of postmodernism, see my articles, “Lyotard,
Postmodernism and Religion,” Philosophia Christi, Vol.7, No. 1 (Spring 2005), pp.
141–153; and “Postmodernism, Derrida and Différance: A Critique,” International
Philosophical Quarterly Vol.XXXIX, No.1, (March 1999), pp. 5–18.
Notes 157
10. BH, p. 28.

11. EBHD, p. 47.
12. See BH, pp. 10-11; also MBI, pp. 125ff.
13. BH, p. 11; also MBI, p. 104.
14. See Sonia Kruks, Situation and Human Existence, p. 12.
15. CF, p. 83.
16. See MBI, p. 116.
17. See Henri Bergson, An Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. by T.E. Hulme (New
York: Macmillan, 1955 ed.), pp. 44–45.
18. MBI, p. 116.
19. Ibid., p. 134.
20. See ibid., pp. 92ff.
21. See K.R. Hanley, Dramatic Approaches to Creative Fidelity: A Study in the
Theater and Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel (Lanham: U.P. of America, 1987); also her
“Marcel: the Playwright Philosopher,” Renascence, Vol. LV, No. 3 (Spring 2003), pp.
241–258.
22. MBI., p. 83.
23. Ibid., p. 82
24. Ibid., p. 21
25. See ibid., pp. 4ff.
26. See ibid., Chapter 2.
27. See ibid.
28. See CF, p. 23; also EO, pp. 71–72; and BH, p. 117.
29. See MBI, pp. 100–101. For a discussion of the levels of Being in Marcel's
thought, see E.L. Straus and M. Machado, “Gabriel Marcel's Notion of Incarnate
Being,” in P.A. Schilpp and L.E. Hahn (eds.), The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel
(LaSalle: Open Court, 1989), p. 129.
Chapter Four
1. PE, pp. 44–45.

2. Gabriel Marcel, “An Autobiographical Essay,” in P.A. Schilpp and L. Hahn
(eds.), The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel, p. 29. See also Awakenings (Milwaukee:
Marquette U.P., 2002), pp. 123–124.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. J.P.Sartre, Existentialism and Human Emotions, trans. by H. Barnes (New York:
Citadel Press, 1990 ed.), p. 13.
6. G. Marcel, “Reply to John D. Glenn, Jr,” in P.A. Schilpp and L.E. Hahn (eds.),
The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel (LaSalle: Open Court, 1989), p. 552.
7. MBI, p. 78.
8. Ibid., p. 83
9. Ibid., p. 4ff.
10. Ibid., p. 83.
11. See McInerny’s introduction to Gabriel Marcel’s Perspectives on The Broken
World, trans. and edited by K.R. Hanley (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette U.P., 1998), p.
10.
12. BH, p. 117.

13. Ibid., p. 118 (emphasis added).
14. See MBI, p. 213.
15. BH, p. 118.
16. See Thomas Michaud, “Secondary Reflection and Marcelian Anthropology,”
Philosophy Today, Vol.34 (1990), pp. 222–228; also, Kenneth Gallagher, The
Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel (New York: Fordham U.P., 1962), pp. 41ff; David
Applebaum, Contact and Attention: The Anatomy of Gabriel Marcel's Metaphysical
Method (Washington, D.C.: Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology, 1986);
Thomas Busch, Circulating Being: Essays in later Existentialism (New York:
Fordham U.P., 1999), pp. 28–42; Clyde Pax, “Philosophical Reflection: Gabriel
Marcel,” The New Scholasticism, Vol. XXXVIII (1964), p. 170; and Patrick
Bourgeois, “Introduction” in Gabriel Marcel, Awakenings, pp. 11ff.
17. CF, p. 22; also PE, p. 25.
18. See CF, p. 22.
19. See “Conversation 2” between Marcel and Paul Ricoeur in Marcel's TWB, pp.
223–229; also Patrick Bourgeois, “Ricoeur and Marcel: An Alternative to Postmodern
Deconstruction,” Bulletin de la Société Américaine de Philosophie de Langue
Française, Vol. VII (Spring 1995), pp. 164–175.
20. Marcel, EBHD, p. 68; see also K. Gallagher, The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel,
p. 83.
21. MBI, p. 38.
22. See especially A.J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (London: V.Gollancz,
1946).
23. I owe this point to Kenneth Gallagher. See his The Philosophy of Gabriel
Marcel, p. 94; see also pp. 92–95 for an excellent exposition of the notions of being
and value in Marcel, which has influenced my exposition here.
24. MBI, p. 199.
25. PE, p. 26.
26. Charles Taliaferro, Contemporary Philosophy of Religion (Malden, MA:
Blackwell, 1998), p. 370.
27. MMS, p. 163.
28. PE, p. 39; BH, pp. 69ff.
29. Ibid., p. 41.
30. Ibid., pp. 39–40.
31. MBI, p. 205.
32. See Gabriel Marcel, “I and Thou,” in Paul Schilpp and L. Hahn, The Philosophy
of Martin Buber, pp. 41–48; see also Marcel's “Martin Buber's Philosophical
Anthropology,” Searchings (New York: Newman Press, 1967), pp. 73–92.
33. K.R. Hanley (editor and translator), Ghostly Mysteries: Existential Drama
(Milwaukee, WI: Marquette U.P., 2004), p. 174.
34. PE, pp. 87–88. See also Marcel's Problematic Man, trans. by Brian Thompson
(New York: Herder, 1967), pp. 41ff.
35. For Marcel's discussion of hope, see “Sketch of a phenomenology and a
metaphysic of hope” in HV, pp. 29–67.
36. Marcel in Gabriel Marcel’s Perspectives on The Broken World, trans. and edited
by K.R. Hanley, p. 186.
37. MMS, p. 37
Notes 159
38. William James, A Pluralistic Universe (New York: Longmans, 1916), pp. 290–
92.
39. See Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue:A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame, IN:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1984 second ed.).
Chapter Five
1. See N. Gilman, Gabriel Marcel on Religious Knowledge (Lanham, MD: U.P.

America, 1975); and Clyde Pax, An Existentialist Approach to God: A study of Gabriel
Marcel (Hague, Netherlands: Nijohff, 1972).
2. Seymour Cain, Gabriel Marcel (South Bend, IN: Regnery, 1963), p. 87.
3. See PE, p. 19.
4. See TWB, pp. 181ff; also P. Prini, “A Methodology of the Unverifiable” in P.A.
Schilpp and L.E. Hahn (eds.), The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel (LaSalle: Open
Court, 1989), pp. 207–8.
5. See Pax, An Existentialist Approach to God:A Study of Gabriel Marcel, pp. 53ff.
6. MBI, p. 213.
7. BH, pp. 41–42; also HV, pp. 132ff.
8. BH, p. 42.
9. See Pax, An Existentialist Approach to God, p. 56.
10. G. Marcel, “Theism and Personal Relationships,” Cross Currents, Vol. I, 1 (Fall
1950), p. 40.
11. CF, p. 80.
12. Pax, An Existentialist Approach to God, p. 60; also Joseph Godfrey, S.J., “The
Phenomena of Trusting and Relational Ontologies,” Bulletin de la Société Américaine
de Philosophie de Langue Française, Vol. VII (Spring 1995), pp. 104–121.
13. Graham Greene, The End of the Affair (New York: Penguin ed., 1979), p. 93.
14. MMS, p. 37.
15. Greene, The End of the Affair, p. 113.
16. See Cates Baldridge, Graham Greene’s Fictions (Columbia, MO: University of
Missouri Press, 2000), pp. 80–82.
17. Greene, Ways of Escape (New York: Viking Press, 1988), p. 191.
18. Greene, The End of the Affair, p. 191.
19. Fr Gerald Hanratty, “The Theistic Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel,’ in his Studies
in Gnosticism and in the Philosophy of Religion (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1997), p.
166.
20. MBII, p. 127.
21. See Alvin Plantinga, “Is Belief in God Properly Basic?” in R. Douglas Geivett
and Brendan Sweetman (eds.), Contemporary Perspectives on Religious Epistemology
(Oxford: Oxford U.P., 1992), pp. 133–141; also A. Plantinga and N. Wolterstorff
(eds.), Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God (Notre Dame, IN: University
of Notre Dame Press, 1983); also William Alston, “Religious Experience and
Religious Belief,” in Geivett and Sweetman, Contemporary Perspectives, pp. 295–
300; also his Perceiving God (Ithaca, NY: Cornell U.P., 1993); also John Hick, An
Interpretation of Religion (New Haven: Yale U.P., 1989), Chapter 13, “The
Rationality of Religious Belief” (also reprinted in Geivett and Sweetman,

Contemporary Perspectives, pp. 304–319).
22. See Alvin Plantinga, “Is Belief in God Properly Basic?” in Geivett and
Sweetman (eds.), Contemporary Perspectives, p. 133.
23. Ibid., p. 135.
24. William Alston, “Religious Experience and Religious Belief,” in Geivett and
Sweetman (eds.), Contemporary Perspectives, p. 295.
25. John Hick, “The Rationality of Religious Belief,” in Geivett and Sweetman
(eds.), Contemporary Perspectives, pp. 305–306.
26. Ibid., p. 305; see also Thomas Anderson, “Philosophy and the experience of
God according to Gabriel Marcel,” Proceedings of the Catholic Philosophical
Association, Vol. 55 (1981), pp. 228–238; and his “The Experiential Paths to God in
Kierkegaard and Marcel,” Philosophy Today, Vol. XXVI (1982), pp. 22–40.
27. For some critical reflections on Plantinga's views, see Stewart Goetz, “Belief in
God is not Properly Basic,” in Geivett and Sweetman, Contemporary Perspectives, pp.
168–177; and Phillip Quinn, “In Search of the Foundations of Theism,” Faith and
Philosophy, 2 (1985), pp. 469–86.
28. Plantinga, “Is Belief in God Properly Basic?,” in Geivett and Sweetman (eds.),
Contemporary Perspectives, p. 140.
Chapter Six
1. See Barry Stroud, The Significance of Philosophical Skepticism (Oxford, New

York, 1984).
2. See my “The Pseudo-Problem of Skepticism,” in Brendan Sweetman (ed.), The
Failure of Modernism (Mishawaka, IN: American Maritain Association/Catholic
University of America Press, 1999), pp. 228–241. My statement of the problem of
skepticism in the opening paragraphs of the present chapter is taken from this article.
3. See Robert Lechner, “Marcel as Radical Empiricist,” in Schilpp & Hahn (eds.)
The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel (LaSalle: Open Court, 1989), p. 462,
4. See Rene Descartes, Meditations in The Philosophical Works of Descartes,
trans. by E.S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross, pp. 144–149.
5. Ibid., p. 148.
6. See Stroud, The Significance of Philosophical Skepticism, chapter 1.
7. MBI, p. 89.
8. See J. Pollock, Contemporary Theories of Empirical Knowledge (New Jersey:
Rowman & Littlefield, 1986), for a survey of some contemporary views in
epistemology in Anglo-American philosophy; also L. Bonjour, The Structure of
Empirical Knowledge (Cambridge, MA: Harvard U.P., 1985); W. V. Quine,
“Epistemology Naturalized” in H. Kornblith (ed.), Naturalizing Epistemology
(Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1987); R. Nozick, Philosophical Explanations
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard U.P., 1981). For an extensive bibliography of recent work
in Anglo-American epistemology, see Kornblith (ed.), Naturalizing Epistemology.
9. See J. Collins, The Existentialists: A Critical Study (Chicago: Regnery, 1958),
p. 143.
10. PE, p. 18.
Notes 161
11. MBI, p. 89.

12. See Gabriel Marcel’s Perspectives on The Broken World, trans. and edited by
K.R. Hanley (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette U.P., 1998), p. 181.
13. MBI, p. 90.
14. EO, p. 52.
15. M. Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. J. MacQuarrie & E. Robinson (New York:
Harper & Row, 1962), pp. 246–247.
16. See MBI, p. 52 (second emphasis added).
17. J. Richardson, Existential Epistemology: A Heideggerian Critique of the
Cartesian Project (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), p. 175.
18. Ibid., p. 175.
19. MBII, p. 9.
20. See H. Dreyfus, Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger's Being and
Time, Division 1 (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1991), chapter 6, and J. Richardson,
Existential Epistemology, chapter 1.
21. See EO, pp. 49–56.
22. Marcel, Gabriel Marcel’s Perspectives on The Broken World, trans. and edited
by K.R. Hanley, p. 178.
23. W.V. Quine, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” in his From a Logical Point of
View (Cambridge, MA: Harvard U.P., 1980 ed.), p. 42; and his “Epistemology
Naturalized,” in H. Kornblith (ed.), Naturalizing Epistemology, p. 22.
24. Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), p. xxiv.
25. W.V.O. Quine, From a Logical Point of View, pp. 3ff.
26. W.V.O. Quine, “Epistemology Naturalized” in H. Kornblith (ed.) Naturalizing
Epistemology, p. 24.
27. Ibid., p. 15.
28. Ibid., p. 24.
29. Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, p. 15.
30. For a critique of Lyotard’s approach, see my “Lyotard, Postmodernism and
Religion,” Philosophia Christi, Vol.7, No. 1 (Spring 2005), pp. 141–153.
31. Barry Stroud, “The Significance of Epistemology Naturalized,” in H. Kornblith
(ed.), Naturalizing Epistemology, p. 81; see also Stroud, The Significance of
Philosophical Skepticism, chapter 4.
Chapter Seven
1. See G.E. Moore, “External and Internal Relations,” in his Philosophical Papers
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1922), pp. 281ff.
2. For an indication of how the discussion of internal and external relations is
usually treated, see Edwin B. Allaire, “Bare Particulars” in his Essays in Ontology
(The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1963), pp. 14–21; A.J. Ayer, “Internal Relations,”
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supp. Vol. 14 (1935), pp. 173–185 (Reprinted
in his Language, Truth and Logic, Ch. 8); A.C. Ewing, Idealism (London: Longman,
1934); Gilbert Ryle, “Internal Relations,” Proceedings of Aristotelian Society, Supp.
Vol. 14 (1935), pp. 154–172; G.E. Moore, “External and Internal Relations,”
Philosophical Papers, pp. 276–309; B. Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (London:

Home Library, 1912); and Timothy Sprigge, “Internal and External Properties,” Mind,
Vol. 71 (1962), pp. 197–212. See also the article by Richard Rorty in P. Edwards
(ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York: Macmillan, 1967), Vol. 7, pp. 125–
133. More recent discussions of internal and external relations, and related issues, can
be found in Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard U.P.,
1980), and David Wiggins, Sameness and Substance (Cambridge, MA: Harvard U.P.,
1980).
3. See Moore, Philosophical Papers, pp. 289–291. My account of Moore's view
in this paragraph owes much to Richard Rorty's clear account of Moore's view in his
article in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
4. See A.J. Ayer, “Internal Relations,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, pp.
173–185, esp. pp. 175ff.
5. See G. Ryle, “Internal Relations,” Proceedings of Aristotelian Society, pp.
156ff.
6. See T. Sprigge, “Internal and External Properties,” Mind, pp. 197–212.
7. Ibid. p. 210.
8. MBI, p. 128.
9. Ibid, p. 116.
10. See ibid., p. 61.
11. See Kripe, Naming and Necessity, esp. pp. 110ff.
12. See D. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1984
ed.), Bk.1, Pt.III, Section XIV, pp. 205–223.
13. Ibid., p. 205.
14. Ibid., section XIV.
15. See ibid., Bk.1, Part IV, Section VI, pp. 299–310.
16. Ibid., p. 205.
17. See C.K. Williams, What is Existence? (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981); also D.
Wiggins, Sameness and Substance; and Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity.
18. See John Passmore, Recent Philosophers (LaSalle: Open Court, 1985), p. 7.
19. See Leibniz’s Fourth paper to Clarke, Section 5, in H. A. Alexander (ed.), The
Leibniz–Clarke Correspondence (Manchester: Manchester U.P., 1956).
20. BH, p. 33.
21. See Baruch Brody Identity and Essence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton U.P., 1980),
pp. 8ff; Max Black, “The Identity of Indiscernibles, “ in M.J. Loux (ed.), Universals
and Particulars: Readings in Ontology (New York: Anchor, 1970), pp. 204–216; and
G.E. Moore, “External and Internal Relations,” Philosophical Papers.
Chapter Eight
1. Marcel, “Autobiographical Essay” in P.A. Schilpp and L.E. Hahn (eds.), The
Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel (LaSalle: Open Court, 1989), p. 30; see also H. Stuart
Hughes, “Marcel, Maritain and the Secular World,” The American Scholar, Autumn
1966, pp. 728–749, especially p. 746.
2. See McInerny’s introduction to Gabriel Marcel’s Perspectives on The Broken
World, trans. and edited by K.R. Hanley (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette U.P., 1998), p. 9.
Notes 163
3. See J. Maritain, Existence and the Existent: An Essay on Christian

Existentialism, trans. L. Galantiere and G.B. Phelan (New York: Image, 1956), pp.
11ff.
4. See J.P. Sartre, Existentialism and Human Emotions, trans. by H. Barnes (New
York: Citadel Press, 1990 ed.), p. 13, and Marcel's “Reply to John D. Glenn, JR.” in
P.A. Schilpp and L.E. Hahn (eds.), The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel, p. 552.
5. Henri de Lubac, Letters of Ɯtienne Gilson to Henri de Lubac, trans. Mary
Hamilton (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988), p. 227.
6. J. Maritain, The Range of Reason (New York: Charles Scribner, 1942), p.12.
7. See J. Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, trans. by G.B. Phelan (New York:
Charles Scribner, 1959), pp. 280–283; and The Range of Reason, pp. 3–29.
8. See The Range of Reason, p. 22.
9. See ibid., p. 22, and The Degrees of Knowledge, pp. 280–283.
10. The Range of Reason, p. 23.
11. Ibid., p. 23.
12.. Ibid.
13. See ibid., p. 26.
14. Ibid., p. 27.
15. See ibid., p. 27.
16. See ibid., pp. 24–26.
17. See ibid., p. 26.
18. See ibid., p. 29
19. BH, p. 117.
20. See MBI, p. 38.
21. See PE, pp. 23ff for Marcel's discussion of secondary reflection (“recollection”)
vs. intuition, and Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics (New York: Mentor, 1962), pp.
62–63 for Maritain's response to the points raised by Marcel.
22. PE, p. 25.
23. See CF, p. 166. See also Maritain's The Range of Reason, p. 9.
24. Maritain, The Range of Reason, p. 9; also James Collins, The Existentialists
(Chicago: Regnery, 1958), pp. 143ff.
25. Marcel, “Concrete Approaches to Investigating the Ontological Mystery,” in
Gabriel Marcel’s Perspectives on The Broken World, trans. and edited by K.R.
Hanley, p. 175. For further discussion of the term “Being” in Marcel's thought, see
Thomas Anderson, “Gabriel Marcel's notions of Being,” Philosophy Today, XIX
(1975), pp. 29–49.
26. J. Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics, p. 62.
27. Ibid., p. 63.
28. See Leo Sweeney, “Existentialism: Authentic and Unauthentic,” The New
Scholasticism, Vol. XL, (1956), pp. 36–61.
29. James Collins, The Existentialists, p. 143.
30. See J. Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics, pp. 9–19.
31. BH, p. 38.
Chapter Nine
1. Charles Hartshorne, “Martin Buber's Metaphysics” in The Philosophy of Martin

Buber, ed. P.A. Schilpp and M. Friedman (La Salle, IL.: Open Court, 1967), p. 68.
2. See Emmanuel Lévinas, “Martin Buber and the Theory of Knowledge,” in The
Philosophy of Martin Buber, p. 149.
3. As quoted in M. Friedman, Martin Buber: The Life of Dialogue (New York:
Harper, 1960) p. 164.
4. As noted by Robert Lechner in his “Marcel as Radical Empiricist,” in P.A.
Schilpp and L.E. Hahn (eds.), The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel (LaSalle: Open
Court, 1989), p. 462.
5. See ibid., p. 161.
6. See Malcolm L. Diamond, “Dialogue and Theology” in The Philosophy of
Martin Buber, pp. 238–239.
7. Ibid., p. 238.
8. Hartshorne, “Martin Buber's Metaphysics,” in The Philosophy of Martin Buber,
p. 66.
9. Lévinas, “Martin Buber and the Theory of Knowledge,” in The Philosophy of
Martin Buber, p. 148.
10. See especially the essays in Schilpp and Friedman by Lévinas, Hartshorne and
Fackenheim. See also M. Friedman, “Buber's Theory of Knowledge,” Chapter
Nineteen of his Martin Buber: The Life of Dialogue; also Dan Avron, Martin Buber:
The Hidden Dialogue (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998) pp. 128–147; also
Steven Kepnes, The Text as Thou (Bloomington, IN: Indiana U.P., 1992). For works
on Marcel that touch on these matters, see especially Clyde Pax, “Philosophical
reflection: Gabriel Marcel,” The New Scholasticism, Vol. XXXVIII (1964), pp. 159–
177, and F.L. Peccorini, Selfhood as Thinking Thought in the work of Gabriel Marcel:
A New Interpretation (New York: Mellon Press, 1987).
11. M. Buber, I and Thou, trans. by Walter Kaufmann (New York: Charles Scrib-
ners Sons, 1970) p. 53. Although I am using Kaufmann's translation, I will translate
Du as “Thou” in all quotations from Kaufmann (rather than Kaufmann's preferred
“You”) so as to avoid unnecessary confusion in my argument.
12. See M. Friedman, Martin Buber: The Life of Dialogue; Robert Wood, Martin
Buber's Ontology (Evanston, IL: Northwestern U.P., 1969); Donald J. Moore, Martin
Buber: Prophet of Religious Secularism (New York: Fordham U.P., 1996), Part II.
13. See I and Thou, p. 56.
14. Ibid., p. 62; see also p. 113; also M. Buber, Eclipse of God (New York: Harper,
1952), p. 35.
15. See Eclipse of God, p. 31.
16. I and Thou, p. 77.
17. Ibid., p. 78.
18. See ibid., pp. 69ff; also pp. 80–81.
19. See Donald J. Moore, Martin Buber: Prophet of Religious Secularism, Part III.
20. See MBI, pp. 154–181.
21. Ibid., pp. 95–126; see also BH, pp. 117ff; also CF, pp. 22ff.
22. See M. Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. J. MacQuarrie & E. Robinson (New
York: Harper & Row, 1962), pp. 80ff; also pp. 96ff; also pp. 401–415. See also M.
Notes 165
Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, trans. A. Hofstadter

(Bloomington, IN: Indiana U.P., 1982), pp. 161–172, pp. 291–313.
23. See The Knowledge of Man, trans. by M. Friedman and R. Gregor Smith
(Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1988 ed.) pp. 147ff.; and Between Man
and Man, trans. by R. Gregor Smith (New York: Macmillan, 1965), p. 124.
24. See Friedman’s remark already quoted above (note 3).
25. For further discussion of this matter, see Robert Wood, Martin Buber's Ont-
ology, pp. 118ff; see also Wood's, “Buber's Notion of Philosophy,” Thought 53 (1978),
pp. 310–319; also Nathan Rotenstreich, Immediacy and Its Limits: A Study in Martin
Buber's Thought (Philadelphia, PA: Harwood, 1991), p. 40; also Laurence J. Silber-
stein, Martin Buber's Social and Religious Thought (New York: New York University
Press, 1989), p. 166. Lévinas also appears to suggest that Buber avoids relativism; see
Lévinas, “Martin Buber and the Theory of Knowledge,” in The Philosophy of Martin
Buber, p. 142.
26. See Eclipse of God, p. 43; also Between Man and Man, p. 12; also The
Knowledge of Man, p. 71.
27. Eclipse of God, p. 39.
28. See Lévinas, “Martin Buber and the Theory of Knowledge,” in The Philosophy
of Martin Buber, p. 139; also Robert Wood, Martin Buber's Ontology, p. 27.
29. Eclipse of God, p. 44.
30. Martin Buber in “Replies to My Critics” in The Philosophy of Martin Buber, p.
692; also Eclipse of God, p. 45.
31. I believe Paul Edwards also makes this mistake in his critique of Buber; see
Edwards, Buber and Buberism: A Critical Evaluation (Kansas: University of Kansas,
1970), especially pp. 18ff.
32. M. Friedman, Martin Buber: The Life of Dialogue, p. 168.
33. Ibid., pp. 165–167.
34. Diamond, “Dialogue and Theology,” in The Philosophy of Martin Buber, p. 239.
35. See G. Marcel, Three Plays (New York: Hill and Wang, 1958); and G. Marcel,
EBHD.
36. G. Marcel, “I and Thou,” in The Philosophy of Martin Buber, pp. 45–6; also G.
Marcel, “Martin Buber's Philosophical Anthropology,” Searchings, pp. 73–92.
37. M. Buber, “Replies to my Critics,” in The Philosophy of Martin Buber, p. 693.
38. Diamond, “Dialogue and Theology,” in The Philosophy of Martin Buber, p. 238.
39. J. Bleicher, Contemporary Hermeneutics (London, England: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1980), p. 117.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brendan Sweetman, a native of Dublin, Ireland, is Professor of Philosophy
at Rockhurst University, Kansas City, MO, USA. His books include Why
Politics Needs Religion: The Place of Religious Arguments in the Public
Square (InterVarsity, 2006) and Religion: Key Concepts in Philosophy (Con-
tinuum Books, 2007). He has coauthored or coedited several other books,
including Truth and Religious Belief (M.E. Sharpe, 1998), and Contemporary
Perspectives on Religious Epistemology (Oxford University Press, 1992).
Professor Sweetman has published more than fifty articles and reviews in a
variety of collections and journals, including International Philosophical
Quarterly, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Faith and Philo-
sophy, Philosophia Christi, and Review of Metaphysics. He writes regularly in
the areas of continental philosophy, philosophy of religion, political philo-
sophy and ethics.
INDEX
Absolute Thou, 73, 74, 84, 131. See See also I-Thou relation
also God Busch, Thomas, 58
abstraction, xii, xv, 20, 34, 35–36, 47,
56, 64 Cain, Seymour, 69
alienation, 62 Calvin, John, 80
Alston, William, 69, 80, 81 Camus, Albert, 42, 77
Anderson, Thomas, xvii, 160, 163 Cartesianism, xi, 7–21, 27, 88, 98,
Anscombe, G.E.M., 60 123, 124
anti-realism, 20, 96, 100 Catholicism, 53, 122
Applebaum, David, 58 causal system, 32, 33, 43, 99
Aristotle, 55, 66, 103, 125 Classical foundationalism, 81
art, 47, 66, 123, 126, 127, 147, 149 Christianity, 63, 81, 83, 122
assurance of being, 59, 63, 92, 148, Claudel, Paul, 122
150 cogito, xv, 15, 17, 19, 37
atheism, 1, 54–55, 67, 76–77, 79 Collins, James 92, 133
availability, xii, 62 commitment, 63, 69, 73, 84, 136
Ayer, A.J., 60, 76, 106, 107 concepts, 17, 34–36, 48, 57, 71, 64,
66, 71, 93, 98, 110, 124. See also
bare particulars, 107 conceptual knowledge
Barthes, Roland, 40, 41, 50 conceptual knowledge, xii, 18, 36, 37,
Beauvoir, Simone de, 54 39, 40, 42–43, 45, 50, 55, 57, 66,
being, xii, 40, 57, 58, 60–61, 64, 74, 110, 128, 138, 147
75, 92, 97, 132, 133, 136, 139, concrete philosophy, 8, 10, 54
141 connatural knowledge, 124–129
being-in-a-situation, 10, 20, 23, 30, cosmological argument, 70, 79
32–38, 47, 50, 70, 71. See also creative testimony, 85
situated involvement critical theory, 40
being-in-the-world, 18, 39, 142
Berdyaev, Nicolas, 54 dasein, xii, 18, 39, 94
Bergson, Henri, 45, 125 deconstruction, 40, 144
Bertocci, Peter A., 28 Delhomme, Jeanne, 135
Black, Max, 118 Derrida, Jacques, 40-41, 49, 50, 97,
Blandshard, Brand, 106 98
Bleicher, Josef, 150 Descartes, René, xv, 10-21, 24, 25,
body and mind, 15, 19, 23, 25–26, 28, 27, 28, 31, 32, 35, 49, 81, 87, 88,
50 90, 92, 94, 97, 100, 129, 145
BonJour, Laurence, 97 D. view of the self, 11–12
Bourgeois, Patrick, xvii, 158 D. wax example, 14, 17
Bradley, F.H., 106 design argument, 70, 79
Brody, Baruch, 118 Diamond, Malcolm, L., 136, 137,
Bryson, Kenneth A., xiii, xvii 146, 147–150
Buber, Martin, xi, xii, xvi, 63, 125, différance, 41
135–151 disponibilité, 62–63, 64
epistemology of M.B., 137–141. doubt, 64, 66, 75–77, 89, 145, 149,
150 69–71, 78. See also Absolute

drama, 64, 66, 149 Thou, faith, transcendence
Dreyfus, Hubert, 11, 12, 18, 19, 23 Godfrey, Joseph, 159
Du Bos, Charles, 54, 121 Goldman, Alvin, 97
Duhem, Pierre, 98 Greene, Graham, 75–76
Elizabeth, Princess of Bohemia, 25, Hahn, L.E., 154, 155

27 Hanley, K.R., xvi, xvii, 8, 63, 157,
embodiment, xv, 23–32, 50, 58, 71 158, 162
e. as a problem, 31 Hanratty, Gerald, 8, 78
e. as an instrument, 25–26 Hare, R.M., 60
empiricism, 101, 103, 123, 124 Hartshorne, Charles, 135, 137, 136,
The End of the Affair (Greene), 75–77 147
Enlightenment, 65 having, realm of, 60
epistemology, 12, 19, 42, 46, 49, 87– Heidegger, Martin, xii, 7, 18, 19, 21,
100, 131, 133, 135–151. See also 33, 37, 39, 50, 54, 55, 88, 89, 94,
knowledge 95, 116, 119, 133, 135, 139, 136,
ethics, xiii, 42, 53, 54, 56, 55, 60–62, 141, 142, 143, 150
126 Heim, Karl, 135
evil, experience of, 71 hermeneutics, 40, 150
evolution, 49, 61 Hick, John, 69, 80, 81, 85
existentialism, xi, 3, 11, 49, 46, 54, Hocking, W.E., 88, 135
90, 91, 99, 122, 132 holism, 17, 36, 98, 110
Christian e., 3, 42, 53, 129 hope, xi, 50, 149
experience, 35, 37, 45, 47–51, 65, 70, human person, see human subject
74, 97, 133, 138. See also human subject, 7, 11, 21, 50, 64, 99
objects of experience fulfillment of h.s., 63
external relations, see internal h.s. as object, 64, 129
relations h.s. as participant, 63
h.s. as spectator, 16, 63
fact/value distinction, 60 h.s. in a context, 24, 32–38, 39, 44,
faith, xi, 50, 54, 59, 75, 149 47, 48, 57
Feuerbach, Ludwig, 149 nature of h.s., xi, 54, 63, 65, 66,
fidelity, xi, xii, xiii, 50, 59–60, 63, 64, 131
66, 72–77, 79, 149, 150 human subjectivity, 21, 32, 39, 43, 49,
Foucault, Michel, 41, 50 50, 51, 55, 122, 132, 140
free will, 77, 99 Hume, David, 60, 96, 103, 104, 113,
Friedman, Maurice, 135 114, 115, 116
Husserl, Edmund, 7, 8, 54, 94, 110
Gallagher, Kenneth T., 29, 38, 58,
158 idealism, 123, 133
Geivett, R. Douglas, 159, 160 ideas, 37
gift, 64 abstract i., 42–47
Gilson, ӊtienne, 123 clear and distinct i., 12, 24, 35, 36,
God, xi, xiii, 62, 73–85, 127, 131, 40
136, 138, 140 particular i., 36, 42–47, 71
affirmation of G., 74, 76, 78 identity of indiscernibles, 117, 118
arguments for the existence of G. identity, 40, 41
Index 185
problem of i., 116, 119 143

I-It relation, xii, 63, 66, 67, 135–141,
146–148, 149–150. See also I- Machado, E.W., 154, 155
Thou relation MacIntyre, Alasdair, 67
indisponibilité, 62–63 Marcel, Gabriel,
intentionality, xi, 12, 18–19, 30, 49, M. approach to god vs. reformed
133, 134 epistemology, 84–85
internal and external relations, 104– M. argument for the existence of
113 God, 78–80
internal relations, 33, 45, 98, 104–113 M. and contemporary
internal relations, doctrine of, 106, epistemology, 97
110 M. and internal relations, 108–113
intersubjectivity, 61, 62, 67, 138 M. and necessary connections,
intuition, 58, 59, 60, 61, 128, 130–131 114–116
is/ought problem, 65 M. and Thomism, xii, 121–124
I-Thou relation, 63, 66, 74, 135–141, M. compared with Buber, 141,
146–150. See also I-It relation 148–150
M. compared with Maritain, 121–
James, William, 64, 125 134
Jaspers, Karl, 7 M. critique of cartesianism, 11–21
Joyce, James, 33 M. general argument against
cartesianism, 20–21
Kant, Immanuel, 15, 72, 78, 87, 88, M. on embodiment, 23–32
96 M. on nature of human subject, 32–
Keeling, S.V., 13 38
Kenny, Anthony, 14 M. on principle of identity, 118
Kierkegaard, Søren, 9, 69, 72 M. rejection of problem of
Kilroy, Thomas, 33 skepticism, 89–97
knowledge, 21, 36, 87. See also M. theistic existentialism, 53–5,
connatural knowledge, 122
epistemology, non-conceptual philosophical method of M. xi, 7–
knowledge, objective 11, 72, 123,
knowledge, theories religious conversion of M., 53–54.
Kripke, Saul, 111, 112 See also human subject,
Kruks, Sonia, 32 knowledge, primary reflection,
secondary reflection, situated
language-game, 100–101 involvement
Lechner, Robert, xvii, 88, 160, 164 Maritain, Jacques, xi, xii, xvi, 54,
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 103, 117 121–129, 230
Lévinas, Emmanuel, 135, 136, 137, M. compared with Marcel, 121–
146 134
literature, 40, 64 mathematics, 47, 98, 137, 139
Locke, John, 15, 81 Mauriac, François, 53
logic, 41, 98, 116, 147 McInerny, Ralph, 57, 122
logical analysis, 103 meaning, 12, 40–41, 45, 46, 91, 95,
logical possibility, 88, 89 100, 111, 118
love, xii, 36, 50, 75, 136, 149, 150 Merleau–Ponty, Maurice, 7, 34, 119,
Lyotard, Jean-François, 98, 100–101, 133
metaphysics, 42, 64, 76, 87, 96, 103, Plantinga, Alvin, 69, 80–85
122, 123, 124, 128, 132, 133 Plato, 103
Michaud, Thomas, xvii, 58, 158 postmodernism, xv, 41, 100–101
mind and body, see body and mind presence, 62
miracles, 77 primary and secondary qualities, 14–
Moore, G.E., 106, 118 15
morality, see ethics primary reflection, xi, xii, 18, 28, 38,
mystery, realm of, xi, xii, 27, 50, 55– 47, 48, 50, 56–59, 62, 63, 64, 67,
60, 65, 67, 97, 130, 138, 148, 70, 71, 78, 74, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96,
150 109, 115, 118, 130, 149. See also
mysticism, 58 reflection, secondary reflection
problems, realm of, 31, 38, 47, 56, 66,
natural law, 62, 70, 99, 101, 127, 131 148
necessary connections, 9, 60, 113–116 properties, 105–106
nihilism, 42, 61, 64, 67, 76 Putnam, Hilary, 98
non-conceptual knowledge, xii, 57,
60, 64, 66, 121–134, 140 Quine, W.V.O., 97–101
Nozick, Robert, 97
realism, 18, 42, 93, 145
O’Malley, John B., 26 Reed, Teresa, xvii, 153
objective knowledge, xii, xi, xv, 8, 15, reflection, 46, 47–71. See also
21, 28, 38, 39–51, 56, 57, 133 conceptual knowledge, primary
objects of experience, 8, 9, 12, 18, 24, reflection, secondary reflection
33, 34, 35, 37, 42, 46, 47, 49, 56, reformed epistemology, 69, 70, 80–85
92, 93, 94, 95 relativism, xi, xii, 38, 39, 40–41, 43,
ontological argument, 12 48, 49, 50, 51, 60, 65. 83, 84, 91,
ontological need, 76 96, 100, 133, 143, 144, 150
ontological priority, 10, 11, 20, 36, religion, 147. See also Christianity,
93, 99, 114, 115, 139–140, 148– theology
151 religion, philosophy of, xi, 69, 71, 78–
ontology, 96, 119, 151 79
Ortega y Gasset, José, 55 religious experience, xiii, 69
argument from r.e., 69, 80
participation, 109, 138 representations, 37, 40, 96, 110
Pax, Clyde, xvii, 74 Richardson, John, 33, 39, 95
phenomenological descriptions, 37, Ricoeur, Paul, 7, 34, 54
43, 45, 55, 57, 65, 82, 114, 136, Royce, Josiah, 106
145, 149 Russell, Bertrand, 106
phenomenology, 8–9, 54 Ryle, Gilbert, 106, 107
philosophy,
analytic p., xi, xii, xv, 9, 11, 60, 98, Sartre, Jean–Paul, 21, 42, 54, 55, 63,
101, 103 67, 119, 133
analytic p. and ethics, 65–67 Schilpp, P.A., 154, 155
continental p., xi, xii, 39, 103, 150– science, xi, 15, 31, 47, 49, 65, 100,
151 115, 137, 139, 143
dialogue in p., 103, 119, 121 scientific knowledge, 90, 97, 124, 130
modern p., xv, 11, 87 scientism, 62
nature of p., 28, 51, 88 Searle, John, 18
Index 187
secondary reflection xii, 55, 74, 130,

131, 132, 135, 149. See also
reflection, primary reflection
secularism, 70
sensation, 28–30, 50, 58
situated involvement, 16–17, 20, 31,
34, 36, 43, 50, 55, 57–60, 61, 92,
94, 95, 112. See also being-in-a-
situation
skepticism, xi, xii, xv, 13, 15, 18, 19,
20, 31, 37, 43, 87–100, 115
Spiegelberg, Herbert, 7
Sprigge, Timothy, 107, 111
Stevenson, C.L., 60
Straus, E.W., 154, 155
Stroud, Barry, 88, 90, 97, 101
structuralism, 40
subjectivity, see human subjectivity
Sweeney, Leo, 163
Sweetman, Brendan, 156, 159, 160,
161, 178, 179
Taliaferro, Charles, 61
technique, xi, 64, 74,
theology, 87, 137, 139, 140, 143
theories, 49, 57, 95, 96, 97, 98, 111,
115, 137, 144–145
Thomas Aquinas, St., 66, 125
Thomism, xi, 121–122, 132
transcendence, xv, 54, 62–64, 69, 73–
77. See also Absolute Thou, God
truth, 10, 100, 101, 136, 141. See also
objective knowledge
values, xii, 60–61, 74. See also ethics
Wahl, Jean, 54
Willard, Dallas, xvii, 154
Wolterstorff, Nicholas, 69, 80
worldview, 70
Zaner, R., 154

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Vision of Marcel

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The vision of

G. John M. Abbarno Matti Häyry

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2008

Cover Design: Studio Pollmann

Editorial Board of PAR

Rod Nicholls (webmaster) Harriet E. Barber

Other Titles in PAR

Deane-Peter Baker and Patrick Maxwell, Editors, Explorations

Constantin V. Ponomareff and Kenneth A. Bryson. The Curve

Editorial Foreword by Kenneth A. Bryson xi

Foreword by Kathleen Rose Hanley xv

List of Abbreviations xix

ONE Marcel’s Critique of Cartesianism 7

TWO Human Being as a Being-in-a-Situation 23

THREE The Objectivity of Knowledge 39

FOUR Secondary Reflection, Ethics, and the Transcendent 53

FIVE Religious Experience, and the Affirmation of God 69

SIX A Marcelian Critique of the Problem of Skepticism 87

SEVEN Marcel and Traditional Philosophical Problems 103

EIGHT Non-Conceptual Knowledge: Marcel and Maritain 121

NINE From an Epistemological Point of View:

About the Author 181

the realm of human experience, fidelity, and promise keeping expresses an

Kenneth A. Bryson, Ph.D.

With artful descriptions, and incisive critiques, Sweetman justifies the

Katharine Rose Hanley

MBI — The Mystery of Being, Vol. I

MBII — The Mystery of Being, Vol. II

BH — Being and Having

EO — “Existence and Objectivity”

TWB — Tragic Wisdom and Beyond

PE — The Philosophy of Existentialism

EBHD — The Existential Background of

MMS — Man Against Mass Society

in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. I will try to explicate in what

cations for traditional philosophy of religion. After some preliminary remarks

chapter, we consider themes common to the work of Jacques Maritain (1882–

MARCEL’S CRITIQUE OF CARTESIANISM

It has proved difficult to categorize phenomenological and existentialist phil-

1. Marcel's Understanding of Philosophy

It is important to appreciate at the outset both Marcel's philosophical method, and

protagonist, of phenomenology. 1 Certainly, Marcel has no grand phenomen-

manner to other existentialist philosophers, most notably Søren Kierkegaard

Everything that can be properly called technique is comparable to a

2. Marcel's Conception and General Critique of Cartesianism

Marcel's existentialist critique of Cartesianism, especially the traditional epist-

The whole array of philosophical distinctions between inner subjective

The knowledge upon which a certain and incontrovertible judgment can

The reality that the cogito reveals—though without discovering an

Coping practices do not represent, and so cannot misrepresent.

3. Marcel's General Argument for the Critique of Cartesianism

(1) Being-in-a-situation is the fundamental mode of being of the human

(2) Being-in-a-situation is ontologically basic for the human subject.

(3) The view of the self as a detached, disinterested, universal ego, on

(4) The human subject's particular ideas as a being-in-a-situation are

(5) Human knowledge initially arises at the ontologically prior level of

Marcel wishes to draw important conclusions from these central points:

(1) The epistemological problems of traditional and recent philosophy

(2) The detached, disinterested, universal ego of Cartesianism is not the

(3) The scientific view of knowledge is not the paradigm of knowledge.

(4) Although abstract reflection plays an important and essential role in

This reconstructs my interpretation of the essential steps in Marcel's critique

HUMAN BEING AS A BEING-IN-A-

1. The Nature of Human Embodiment