The Quest for a Post-Metaphysical Access to the Human: From Marcel to Heidegger

References

• Marcel reflects on the initial independence of the two authors and his complex reception of Heidegger in his “Ma relation avec Heidegger” [1957], in Gabriel Marcel et la pensée allemande. Nietzsche, Heidegger, Ernst Bloch. Paris: Aubier, 1979, pp. 25–38. As one would expect, there is no comparable text by Heidegger.
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• Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, La fiction du politique, Paris: C. Bourgois, [1987] 1988, p. 87. All translations are my own.
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• The essence of the problem of the subject could be located in the foundational efficiency ascribed to it in modernity, that is—as Renaut puts it in his summary of the critics’ judgement thereof—in “ce rapport au monde où l'homme se pose comme pouvoir de fondation (fondation de ses actes et de ses représentations, fondation de l'histoire, fondation de la vérité, fondation de la loi): c'est un tel pouvoir de fondation qui définit la subjectivité au sens où l'apparition de l'homme comme sujet désigne sa position comme le sub-jectum, le ‘sous-jacent’ sur la base duquel tout doit désormais reposer.” see Alain Renaut, L'ère de l'individu. Contribution à l'histoire de la subjectivité. Paris: Gallimard, 1989, pp. 27–28.
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• Cf. Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, [1927] 1993, § 6.
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• Instead of following the schematic reconstruction of the “thinking of 68” (cf. Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut, La pensée 68. Essai sur l'anti-humanisme contemporain. Paris: Gallimard, 1985), one could consult the detailed report on the French reception of Heidegger by Dominique Janicaud, Heidegger en France. Paris: Albin Michel, 2001.
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• Evidently one should think here of a certain idea of traditional metaphysics against which both Marcel and Heidegger reacted. It is well known that they both (albeit in different ways) adopted the term metaphysics favourably in their early philosophy, precisely in opposition to the notion of metaphysics that they criticised.
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• Cf. Janicaud's assessment: Heidegger “se soit vu porté au pinacle du snobisme de l'intelligentsia parisienne, son prestige soudain au zénith, sans que rigueur lui soit guère tenue d'être du camps des vaincus, ni de s'être compromis politiquement à partir de 1933, sans en outre qu'il ait pris aucune part—au début au moins—pour susciter cet élan de curiosité et de sympathie.” Heidegger en France. op. cit. p. 81.
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• Le mystère de l'être. Tome I: Réflexion et mystère. Paris: Présence de Gabriel Marcel, [1951] 1997, p. 5.
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• The connection between Heidegger and Marcel has been made at least as early as Jean Wahl's Vers le concret. Études d'histoire de la philosophie contemporaine. William James, Whitehead, Gabriel Marcel. Paris: Vrin, 1932.
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• Cf. Vincent Berning, Das Wagnis der Treue. Gabriel Marcels Weg zu einer konkreten Philosophie des Schöpferischen. Freiburg/München: Karl Alber, 1973, pp. 44–51.
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• As unsatisfactory as it may be, for the sake of clarity, I render Sein, être as “Being” and Seiendes, les êtres, as “being(s)”.
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• Cf. Jean-Michel le Lannou, “La philosophie en France au XXe siècle.” in Encyclopédie Philosophique Universelle. Volume 1. André Jacob (ed.), Paris: PUF, 1991.
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• Marcel attests to the independence of the two books in “Ma relation avec Heidegger”, op. cit. p. 27.
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• “Regard en arrière”, in Etienne Gilson (ed.), Existentialisme chrétien: Gabriel Marcel. Paris: Plon, 1947, pp. 291–319, citation p. 319.
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• “Ebauche d'une philosophie concrète” (1938), in Essai de philosophie concrète, Paris: Gallimard, [1949] 1999, p. 97–98.
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• From a multitude of possible references to discussions of this question, see Journal métaphysique. Paris: Gallimard, [1927] 1997, pp. 242, 267, Position et approches. op. cit. pp. 54–55, Être et avoir. Paris: Aubier, 1935, p. 158, Essai de philosophie concrète, op. cit. pp. 28–31, Le mystère de l'être I, op. cit. p. 98.
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• Cf. for instance, “Ma relation avec Heidegger” op. cit. p. 33.
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• The contrast between Marcel and Descartes is presented here, not only for its clarification of Marcel's position, but also because of the important place Descartes holds in French philosophy. Tom Rockmore explains (perhaps overstating the point slightly) that in France, Cartesian philosophy, “now as before, […] continues to remain close to the centre of the French philosophical debate”, see Heidegger and French philosophy. Humanism, antihumanism and being. London/New York: Routledge, 1995, p. 7. See also his discussions in support of this claim, especially on pp. 6–8, 25, 30, 40–46, 51–53, 66–69. Marcel's own strategy to present his thought in opposition to that of Descartes can be illuminated from this perspective. It is also in his polemics with Descartes that he could be considered to pave a way for Heidegger (cf. §4.1).
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• Position et approches. op. cit. p. 57.
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• Le mystère de l'être I, op. cit. p. 117.
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• See the title of the first essay in Essai de philosophie concrète: “L'Être incarné, repère central de la réflexion métaphysique” [1939] op. cit. pp. 21–59. Metaphysics, in other words, does not serve to enhance our understanding of the human being; instead, reflection of the body-subject is rather a pre-requisite of a new version of metaphysical thought.
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• Cf. Position et approches. op. cit. p. 56.
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• The presence in question here is that of being irrecoverably constituted by Being; and thus not simply the presence of Heidegger's criticism of the metaphysics of presence. This mystery of presence forms an important element in the comparison by Chad Engelland, “Marcel and Heidegger on the proper matter and manner of thinking”, Philosophy Today, Spring 2004, pp. 94–109, see in particular, pp. 98 & 102–103.
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• Position et approches. op. cit. pp. 56–57.
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• Être et avoir, op. cit. p. 11 and cf. Journal métaphysique. op. cit. p. 281 and Essai de philosophie concrète, op. cit. p. 99.
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• The first elaboration on mysteries dates from 18 January 1919, in Journal métaphysique. op. cit. pp. 159–160.
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• Position et approches. op. cit. p. 61.
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• Of this, the Journal Métaphysique is probably the best known, but aside from this volume, there are, in his early philosophy, Être et Avoir (1935) and the very early Fragments Philosophiques. 1909–1914, Louvain: Éditions Nauwelaerts, 1961.
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• Position et approches. op. cit. pp. 63–64.
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• In this, there is an important correspondence between Marcel and Husserl: “Husserl reconnaît […] que la subjectivité ne peut pas être un principe absolu, un commencement radical, ni ce ‘point archimédique’ qu'y a vu Descartes. C'est pourquoi, bien que la phénoménologie transcendantale puisse être considérée à certains égards comme la figure accomplie de la modernité—si du moins nous comprenons la modernité comme ce processus qui, depuis Descartes, promeut la subjectivité et l'élève à l'être absolu—, c'est pourtant paradoxalement en elle que nous voyons émerger l'idée que le sujet vient toujours trop tard, qu'il est toujours déjà précédé par son autre, sous la double figure du temps et de l'autre sujet, qui apparaissent en un sens comme étant toujours ‘plus vieux’ que le sujet lui-même.” Françoise Dastur, Husserl. Des mathématiques à l'histoire, Paris: PUF, 1995, p. 44.
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• In James Bennet's examination of “Selves and personal existence in the existentialist tradition”, in Journal of the History of Philosophy, 37/1, 1999, pp. 135–156 a markedly affirmative interpretation of the self in Marcel is presented, because, while he correctly presents the affirmation of the self as a person in responsible, active participation with a society (cf. Homo Viator. Prolégomènes à une métaphysique de l'espérance. Paris: Aubier, 1944, p. 27), he passes over the originary “passive constitution” of the Marcelian subject in mysteries (as that of the presence that informs the discussion of the self-affirmation of the person in Homo Viator). In other words, a person who affirms himself or herself actively does so only as being previously and contemporaneously constituted by a series of mysteries, whether the person realises it or not.
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• Paul Ricoeur, “Réflexion primaire et réflexion seconde chez Gabriel Marcel.“ in Lecteurs 2. La contreé des philosophes. Paris: Seuil [1984] 1992, p. 54.
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• On this, explicitly, see Sein und Zeit. op. cit. §10. See also Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, (Gesamtausgabe 3) Frankfurt-am-Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1991 pp. 273&283. On the gender neutrality of Dasein, see “Vom Wesen des Grundes” (1929), in Wegmarken. Frankfurt-am-Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1967, pp. 129–176, citation p. 158. Marcel understood this correctly, but in this was not in line with the existentialist reading of Heidegger, cf. “Ma relation avec Heidegger”, op. cit. p. 28.
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• Heidegger describes the Being-understanding (that is, the ontological) nature of Dasein's existence as “pre-ontological”, but it is also perfectly correct to say, as Levinas does, that Dasein is ontology (cf. Entre nous. Essais sur le penser-à-l'autre. Paris: Grasset, 1991, p. 13. Levinas says “anthropologisingly”: “Tout l'homme est ontologie”). In Heidegger's well-known statement (Sein und Zeit, op. cit. p. 12): “Die ontische Auszeichnung des Daseins liegt darin, daβ es ontologisch ist”, the adjective “ontologisch” has to be read as “adverb” to “ist”, in other words, Dasein is ontology, the event of the understanding of Being.
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• Cf. Sein und Zeit op. cit. p. 24.
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• Cf. “Die Zeit des Weltbildes” (1938) in Martin Heidegger, Holzwege. Gesamtausgabe 5. Frankfurt-am-Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1950, pp. 75–96.
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• Heidegger says: “Ego cogito, ist cogito: me cogitare.“ in “Überwindung der Metaphysik”, in Martin Heidegger, Vorträge und Aufsätze, (Gesamtausgabe 7), Frankfurt-am-Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1977, pp. 67–98, citation p. 72.
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• In fact, the subject as sub-iectum does not necessarily have to be related to the I, but it is especially by doing so that Descartes sets the tone for modern philosophy—cf. Paul Ricœur, “Heidegger et la question du sujet”, in Le conflit des interprétations. Essais d'herméneutique. Paris: Seuil. 1969, pp. 226–227.
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• “Dasein ist unausgesprochen im vorhinein als Vorhandenes begriffen.”, Sein und Zeit. op. cit. p. 114.
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• Cf. Ricœur: “Heidegger et la question du sujet”, op. cit., as well as the third chapter of Jacques Derrida, De l'esprit. Heidegger et la question. Paris: Galilée, 1987, pp. 31–42.
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• In what follows, I borrow particularly from the study by Rudolf Bernet, “La réduction phénoménologique et la double vie du sujet”, in: La vie du sujet. Recherches sur l'interprétation de Husserl dans la phénoménologie. Paris: PUF (Epiméthée), 1994, pp. 536, but also the study of which the latter is a continuation, Jean-François Courtine's “Réduction phénoménologique-transcendantale et différence ontico-ontologique”, in: Heidegger et la phénoménologie. Paris: Vrin. 1990, pp. 207–247.
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• Cf. Sein und Zeit. op. cit. p. 15 & 16.
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• Cf. Sein und Zeit. op. cit. p. 129: “Das Selbst des alltäglichen Daseins ist das Man-selbst, das wir von dem eigentlichen, das heiβt eigens ergriffenen Selbst unterscheiden. Als Man-selbst ist das jeweilige Dasein in das Man zerstreut und muβ sich erst finden. Diese Zerstreuung charakterisiert das ‘Subjekt’ der Seinsart, die wir als das besorgende Aufgehen in der nächst begegnenden Welt kennen.”
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• Cf. Sein und Zeit. op. cit. p. 123.
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• Cf. Dominique Janicaud, “L'analytique existentiale et la question de la subjectivité“, in: “Être et Temps” de Martin Heidegger. Questions de méthode et voies de recherche. (D. Janicaud & J-P Cometti, eds.). Marseille: SUD, 1989, pp. 45–57.
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• “Was ist Metaphysik?” (1929), in Wegmarken. op. cit. pp. 103–122, citation 112.
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• In short, “Das existenzial-ontologische Fundament der Sprache ist die Rede.” Sein und Zeit. op. cit. p. 160; the detail is developed especially in §§ 32–34 of the same book, but much more clearly in Logik. Die Frage nach der Wahrheit. (course of the winter semester 1925/1926). (Gesamtausgabe 21). Frankfurt-am-Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1976, §12.
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• “Ma relation avec Heidegger”, op. cit. p.31.
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