Gabriel Marcel 1889 – 1973
Gabriel Marcel was a French Catholic existentialist philosopher, dramatist, and music critic. Often called the first French existentialist, he distinguished his thought sharply from Sartre's atheist existentialism, preferring the term Christian neo-Socratism. The Mystery of Being, his Gifford Lectures, and the earlier Metaphysical Journal develop a philosophy centered on the distinction between problems, which are external to the inquirer, and mysteries, in which the inquirer is himself implicated. He wrote thirty plays alongside his philosophical work and corresponded with Paul Ricoeur in his last years.
Key facts
- Nationality
- French
- Era
- Contemporary
- Movements
- Existentialism, Continental, Christian
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Gabriel Marcel:
“Being and having are the two fundamental categories of existence.”
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Attributed to Gabriel Marcel:
“Hope is for the soul what breath is for the body.”
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Attributed to Gabriel Marcel:
“A philosopher must accept the mystery of being.”
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Attributed to Gabriel Marcel:
“Fidelity is the active recognition of something permanent.”
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Attributed to Gabriel Marcel:
“The intellect's deepest task is to safeguard the mystery.”