A Dialogue with Gabriel Marcel : Overcoming Despair
Date Issued
2012
Date
2012
Author(s)
Chang, Chung-Wei
Abstract
Relying on Gabriel Marcel ‘s Homo Viator, this essay intends to work out the possibility of an overcoming of despair without relying on religious premises. It takes the phenomenological method of describing and analyzing concrete phenomena of despair to reveal its essences and reasons.
The phenomenological description of despair points out free will and creating possibility, besides the physical, as human essences. These essences could not be reduced into physical facts, and consequently, they are not confined to their idle physical world. Hope urges to strive forward, and stimulates to create something new in the future.
Disappoint expresses human dissatisfaction about what we actually are or have with regard to our expectation. Despair emerges when we are unable to reach our expected purpose. In contrast, hope is the connection of men with their purpose. Therefore, without will and purpose, hope could not be possible. Hope internally includes a certain purpose.
Marcel’s reflection on “Being” and “Having” helps us to categorize different consequences in relating to different purposes, and forces us to reflect further. Reflection on “having” would, on the one hand, points out the inaccessibility to hope. Possession (having) would isolate the subject, and would force it to overly focus on those “had been” facts in the past, and on how to “acquire” them. “Having” would cause the loss of sight of human ability of creating, and hinder human connection to purpose. Reflection on “being” would, on the other hand, brings the accessibility to hope. It focuses on men’s “being” in the present and “to-be” in the future. And as such, it preserves men’s possibility of creating. Precisely thanks to the possibility of creating that the reflection on “being” would help in securing the connection between the subject and his or her purpose. It proves that reflection on “being” is the most adequate to human purpose and hope.
The last part deals with human accessibility to others in the “being” reflection. Accessibility to others will make men and others develop and establish themselves mutually. It forms a certain form of “inter-subjectivity” that is the most concrete situation of men’s existence. In this sense, “being” goes beyond a pure reflection, pointing to the way men exist, i.e. human existence. In the conclusion, this essay reiterates the arguments (of Marcel) that the possibility of overcoming despair without relying on religious premises can be possible if men must recognize themselves first as human “beings”. Being means existing. Being expresses human capacity of having access to hope and higher hope (transcendence). As such, Being reveals itself with its capacity of overcoming despair.
Subjects
Gabriel Marcel
Homo Viator
Hope
Despair
Being
Having
Accessibility
Intersubjectivity
Type
thesis
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Loading...
Name
ntu-101-R95124009-1.pdf
Size
23.54 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum
(MD5):654fba23e1a58718554251798122c8da