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1. “IF THERE IS A PLOT”: GABRIEL MARCEL AND SECOND DEGREE REFLECTIONPaolo Diego BubbioIntroductionThe thought of Gabriel Marcel presents an ambiguous but interesting philosophicalchallenge. On the one hand, its importance for the development of the Existentialistmovement is undeniable: the first edition of the Metaphysical Journal is published in1927, the same year in which Heidegger published Sein und Zeit on Husserl’s reviewJahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung, but the early notes ofMarcel’s Journal are dated 1914. Thanks to his hosting of the famous “Friday evenings,”he associated with many of the prominent philosophers of his day: Paul Ricoeur,Emmanuel Levinas, Jean Wahl, and Jean-Paul Sartre were among the many noted philosopherswho attended these gatherings at one time or another. On the other hand, althoughhe did not like to be labeled as an “existentialist,” referring to his own way of thinkingas “Christian socratism,” the label of “Christian existentialist” which was attributed to himdid not help his fame. His philosophy was considered merely as a “religious philosophy”(and this was a mistake, because his thought does not imply a preceding Christian professionof faith; thus it is rather a “philosophy of religion,” because his thought opens ontotranscendence); other kinds of “existentialist” thought were preferred, and his thought hasbeen almost forgotten. 1In our opinion, it is instead particularly interesting to focus on Gabriel Marcel’s thought,also for a reason of “topicality.” The epoch in which we live, characterized by a loss ofshared values and by the confrontation (if not conflict) between different cultures, seemsto issue to philosophy the challenge of expressing itself on the possibility of a thoughtable to be shared and “usable.” 2 Nevertheless, the space granted to philosophy seems to be,at first sight, not very wide, particularly if we accept a hermeneutic point of view whichexcludes the possibility of a return to traditional metaphysics (which cannot be easilyconsidered as shareable by different cultures and which, moreover, always hides withinitself the risk of the assumption of a “violent” point of view) and the secular possibilityof an absolute relativism (which renounces the search of a truly shareable sense, andwhich always hides the risk of a fall into complete aphasia). I think that a re-examinationof some aspects of Marcel’s thought can help contemporary philosophy in setting out theboundary markers of this space.In what follows, I will try to make the point about the relationship between Marcel andphenomenology. Then, I will focus my attention on some central nuclei of Marcel’s thought:the notion of body, the notion of existence and the notion of “secondary reflection” (or“second degree reflection”). These themes are reciprocally connected, and I hope that theconnection will be clear at the end of this paper, when I will treat the problem of universality.Finally, I will try to answer a question: is it possible to speak of a “Marcellianhermeneutics”?1Acknowledgment: part of this paper was written when I enjoyed the hospitality of HeythropCollege, University of London, UK, and has been presented -- together with a previous version -- at thePhilosophy Research Seminar (Heythrop College). Helpful comments from Peter Gallagher, MichaelKirwan, and seminar participants are gratefully acknowledged. I would like also to thank Tom Michaudand Brendan Sweetman for their suggestions.2See Maurizio Pagano, “La dimensione dell’universalità e l’esperienza ermeneutica,” in GiuseppeNicolaci and Leonardo Samonà, ed., L’universale ermeneutico (Genova: Tilgher, 2003), 47.55