Posts tagged Marcel
No two beings, and no two situations, are really commensurable with each other. To become aware of this fact is to undergo a sort of crisis.
— Gabriel Marcel
The other, in so far as he is other, only exists for me in so far as I am open to him, in so far as he is a Thou. But I am only open to him in so far as I cease to form a circle with myself, inside which I somehow place the other, or rather his idea; for inside this circle, the other becomes the idea of the other, and the idea of the other is no longer the other qua other, but the other qua related to me…
— Marcel, p. 107
If I treat a ‘Thou’as a ‘He’, I reduce the other to being only nature; an animated object which works in some ways and not in others. If, on the contrary, I treat the other as ‘Thou’, I treat him and apprehend him qua freedom. I apprehend him qua freedom because he is also freedom and not only nature.
— Marcel, pp. 106-107
There is an order where the subject finds himself in the presence of something entirely beyond his grasp. I would add that if the word “transcendent” has any meaning it is here—it designates the absolute, unbridgeable chasm yawning between the subject and being, insofar as being evades every attempt to pin it down.
— Marcel (The Philosophy of Existentialism, 1995, p. 193)
Being is—or should be—necessary. It is impossible that everything should be reduced to a play of successive appearances which are inconsistent with each other… or, in the words of Shakespeare, to “a tale told by an idiot.” I aspire to participate in this being, in this reality—and perhaps this aspiration is already a degree of participation, however rudimentary
— Marcel (The Philosophy of Existentialism, 1995, p. 15)
