Critical Remarks

Abstract

It is most difficult to entertain many serious objections to a body of thought as fresh and original as Marcel’s. Inspired by a rare intellectual integrity and exigence for truth and clarity, he unquestionably ranks as one of the major figures in contemporary philosophy. Because of this, though, those who take it on themselves to examine such work in a critical manner, however constructively, must always, it seems, appear to themselves as not a little pretentious. On the other hand, just because such a thinker discloses hitherto unsuspected horizons and dimensions of our experience, it becomes possible and even necessary for others to “see for themselves” what has thus been opened up; and, thus, it becomes possible to accept the invitation to “check” the philosophical insights with the phenomena themselves. Just as Descartes invited the critical minds of his day (those who were willing and able, he states in his Preface to the Meditations, to set aside their own beliefs and prejudices) to read through with him the course of his thought, and thereby see for themselves the legitimacy of his claim to have discovered a new territory, so, too, Marcel gives us an open invitation to follow along with him.