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ReflectionPhilosophical thought is reflective. Reflection is the recall or re-examination of experiencein order to understand or to comprehend it. Experience transforms itself into reflection.Reflection, according to Marcel, operates on more than one level. Marcel writes: “thereis primary reflection, and there is also what I shall call secondary reflection.” 48What is first degree reflection? A problem is something I meet, which I find completebefore me, but which I can reduce. Each problem can, in principle, produce verifiable solutions.We have to get sufficient distance from our own, subjective selves, in order to posean objective problem, and thus we can get a verifiable answer. This is basically a phenomenologicalmethod, and Marcel believes that it will drive man to the right position. Butit must also be emphasized that this kind of reflection -- first degree reflection -- “breaks theunity of experience,” as the subject does not enter into the object investigated. It is clearthat Marcel, here, for “subject,” does not mean the body, but the I. When an experiencedeals with my I, I necessarily enter into the object investigated. But first degree reflectiontends to ignore this. If we treat these experiences as problems, first degree reflection tendsto analyze them, dissolving the unity of experience. 49 “Reflection, because it is critical,is cold: it not only puts a bridle on the vital impulses, it freezes them.” 50Second degree reflection occurs when we recognize a break in the continuity of ourexperience: “To reflect, in this kind of case, is to ask oneself how such a break can haveoccurred.” 51 Second degree reflection intervenes when I look back and realize that the“fixity” of the experience (derived from the work of first degree reflection) does not correspondanymore to the real, to the concrete. In this act, a keeping distance from the immediatehappens; and this is the essence of the second degree reflection, and constitutes thecondition of the possibility of thinking a conceptual universality which concedes nothingto the “spirit of abstraction,” but which on the contrary remains anchored to the concrete.Marcel gives a very concrete example of these dynamics: “A man who has been travelingon foot arrives at the edge of a river where the bridge has been carried away by a flood.He has no option but to call a ferryman. In an example such as that which I have just cited,reflection does really play the part of the ferryman. . . . I cannot go on just as if nothinghad happened: there really is something that necessitates an act of readjustment on mypart.” 52 First degree reflection tends to break down the unity of experience, whereas seconddegree reflection tends to restore it: “Roughly, we can say that where primary reflection48Marcel, The Mystery of Being, 1: 83. It is convenient to say something, in passing, about thestandard English translation of the two levels of reflection we are talking about. In French, Marcel callsthem réflexion primaire and réflexion seconde. He does not use secondaire, which would translateperfectly into the English term secondary but means “subordinate,” “dependent.” These are not the meaningsin the French term seconde; in fact, the réflexion seconde is not subordinate to the réflexion primaire:it is sufficient to note that Marcel sometimes defines the réflexion seconde as “reflection to the power oftwo,” which is very far from being “subordinate” or “dependent.” This is the reason why I prefer to translateréflexion primaire and réflexion seconde with “first degree” or “first level” reflection and “seconddegree” or “second level” reflection. I will continue to use “primary” and “secondary reflection” in thequotations. It is interesting to note that Marcel himself, who often used English words or phrasal verbsin order to explain his thought better, considering the English language more “concrete” and more closeto the real, often complained about English translations of his works.49Marcel, The Mystery of Being, 1: 83.50Ibid., 1: 81.51Ibid., 1: 78.52Ibid., 1: 79.63