Gabriel Marcel: Metaphysics facing Death

la metafísica ante la muerte

Abstract

In this paper I will intend to show how death strikes the foundations of the metaphysical category of presence in the work of Gabriel Marcel. Contrariwise to other existential philosophies, the meaning of death is found in the death of the beloved one. For this reason, death is meaningful within the experience of fidelity and love, and what turns it tragic is that it puts into question both the legitimacy of the promise of eternity that love entails, and the ontological consistence of existence. Far from being strange to the dramatic rhythm of Marcel’s philosophy, the reflection on death stresses the need to think the link between presence and absence to embrace the meaning of what is not phenomenalized. Hence, one could find a deepening of phenomenology in Marcel’s hyperphenomenology, who could be seen as one of the first thinkers that started the so called “theological turn” in contemporary phenomenology.