Note
This page was added December 2004, to indicate my future plans for the Existential Primer. Please know that this page may be delayed at least until 2006 while I address the primary pages of the primer. I consider it important to complete pages on Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, and Camus before expanding further.
Introduction
Biography
Updated: 21 July 2003 (research continues)Most noted within existentialism for his disputes with Jean-Paul Sartre, Marcel was a gifted essayist and playwright, specializing in matters of faith and morality
Marcel was born 7 December 1889 in Paris. His father was a civil servant. Due to the nature of European politics of the time, it is important to note Marcel’s mother was Jewish. This link to the Jewish faith and traditions would influence Marcel’s understanding of human cruelty.
In approximately 1894, Marcel’s mother died. Marcel was four years old.
The French government dispatched Marcel’s father to Sweden in 1898. Marcel spent only a few years in Sweden, pursuing his education in France.
Marcel reccived his doctorate in philosophy from the Sorbonne in 1910. His studies were influenced by Bergson and F. H. Bradley. (I admit to being unfamiliar with both.)
Some form of health problems led Marcel to relocate to Switzerland in 1912. It seems to have been common to seek care and rest at various spas and health clinics at that time. While resting physically, Marcel began writing Journal Métaphysique, published in 1927.
During World War I, Marcel served with the Red Cross. WWI is sometimes described as worse than World War II. New technologies and horrific weapons left battlefields barren of all life. These images influenced Marcel, and most other European writers.
While with the Red Cross, Marcel began his first play, Le Soleil invisible (The invisible sun). Marcel would write more than 20 plays during his life.
Gabriel Marcel interviewed many French victims of Nazi Concentration Camps following World War II and wrote several important works on “Human Dignity and Cruelty.”
Marcel joined the ranks of “Christian existentialists” while working as the drama critic for L’Europe nouvelle. Following a favorable review of a work by François Mauriac, Marcel received a note from the author. “Why are you not one of us?” Mauriac asked. Not long after, Marcel joined the Catholic Church and would remain a defender of faith.
For Marcel, freedom was demonstrated by a respect for and love of other individuals. The truly free would undertand the rights of all men had to be defended to deserve personal freedom.
Chronology
1889 December 7
Born in Paris, France
1894
Mother dies
1898
Father made ambassador or “French representative” to Sweden
1910
Doctorate from the Sorbonne
1912
Moves to Switzerland, begins writing Journal Métaphysique
.
Dies.
Works
Journal métaphysique, 1927
Rome n’est plus dans Rome, Play: 1951
Être et avoir, 1935 (Being and Having, 1949)
Présence et immortalité, 1959
Le Mystère de l’être, 1950 (The Mystery of Being, 1951)
Homo Viator, 1945 (English, 1951)
Les Hommes contre l’humain, 1951 (Man Against [Mass] Society, 1952)
Le Déclin de la sagesse, 1954 (The Decline of Wisdom, 1954)
