5 Lessons from Gabriel Marcel

Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973) was a French philosopher prominent in the twentieth century. He is still known as a Christian existentialist although he later rejected that label. His father was a non-practicing Catholic; his mother's family was Jewish. Since his mother died when Marcel was a very young child, his maternal aunt raised him--at some point she converted to a liberal form of Protestantism. From this eclectic background, Marcel himself eventually converted to Catholicism as a mature man and thinker. The basic outline of his philosophy had already been set before his conversion. This book discusses five themes found in Marcel's essays collected in the book The Philosophy of Existence published in English in 1948 (a reprint is available in the Kindle library). The themes discussed in my book include testimony, transcendence, the onlooker versus the witness, creative receptivity, and transmutation into a gift.