Lesson # 7:

I: The Subject and

the Object
INTRODUCTION
On the one hand, I can say that “I have my body” in the sense that my body is mine and
mine alone.
No one else can claim my body as their own, to do with it what they wish.
In this sense, it is like property. I also have my body in the sense that I have a
responsibility towards it.
I can either feed or nourish it or I can let it rot and wither away.
The same is true if I had a dog. I can take care of it fully and lovingly or I can just ignore it
and be a horrible pet owner.
In another sense, I also have my body because I can do whatever I want with it. I can sit,
stand up, play basketball, or watch a movie if I so desire.
This is similar to how I have control over a simple possession like a book—I can highlight
its lines, tear up its pages, or have it covered in plastic if I want to.
However, I must realize that my body is not some mere possession like a dog or
a book.
My body is the manifestation of myself and Subjectivity.
And so, I also say that “I am my body” because there is no way I can separate
myself from it. Even if I try hard like Descartes to deny and doubt my existence,
I will still wake up to the fact that my idea of the self is always somehow tied
to the manifestation that is my body.
“The self and the body are not two things that just happened to be attached to
each other. Rather, the self that I have is completely and absolutely embodied.”
To make sense of this paradox, I can understand my body as an
intermediary between myself and the world with which I interact.
The encounter of the experience between myself and the world takes place
precisely and only because of my body.
Thanks to my body, the couch I am sitting on is soft, the sky is a beautiful
powder blue, and the effect of
the crispy pata on my batok is strong and worrying.
The world I experience is decidedly different from the world which the
lamok experiences, and this is due to the body I have and the body I am.
The distinction between two kinds of questions—problem and mystery—brings
to light two different kinds of thinking or reflection.

The problematic is addressed with thinking that is detached and technical, while
the mysterious is encountered in reflection that is involved, participatory and
decidedly non-technical. Marcel calls these two kinds of thinking “primary” and
“secondary” reflection.
– Primary reflection examines its object by abstraction, by
analytically breaking it down into its constituent parts.
– It is concerned with definitions, essences and technical
solutions to problems. In contrast,
– secondary reflection is synthetic; it unifies rather than divides.
“Roughly, we can say that where primary reflection tends to
dissolve the unity of experience which is first put before it,
– the function of secondary reflection is essentially
recuperative; it reconquers that unity” (Marcel 1951a, p. 83).
In the most general sense, reflection is nothing other than attention brought
to bear on something.
However, different objects require different kinds of reflection.
In keeping with their respective application to problem and mystery, primary
reflection is directed at that which is outside of me or “before me,”
while secondary reflection is directed at that which is not merely before me—
that is, either that which is in me, which I am, or those areas where the
distinctions “in me” and “before me” tend to break down. The parallels
between having and being, problem and mystery, and primary and secondary
reflection are clear, each pair helping to illuminate the others.
Thus, secondary reflection is one important aspect of our access to the self.
It is the properly philosophical mode of reflection because, in Marcel's view,
philosophy must return to concrete situations if it is to merit the name
“philosophy.”
These difficult reflections are “properly philosophical” insofar as they lead to
a more truthful, more intimate communication with both myself and with any
other person whom these reflections include (Marcel 1951a, pp. 79–80).
Secondary reflection, which recoups the unity of experience, points the way
toward a fuller understanding of the participation alluded to in examples of
the mysterious.
– Marcel argues that secondary reflection helps us to recover the experiences of
the mysterious in human life. Secondary reflection is best understood as an act
of critical reflection on primary reflection, and as a process of recovery of the
“mysteries of being.” It 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 unlike ordinary
reflection, it is a critical reflection directed at the nature of thought itself.