Video and Podcast Resources On Gabriel Marcel's On The Ontological Mystery

nine lectures in video and podcast format on this short but rich work

One of the highly underrated and often too-neglected philosophers of the 20th century is Gabriel Marcel. He’s someone whose works I’ve been reading from time to time for about three decades, and a sort of companion on the road of study and thought. Even when I’m not reading him and engaging with his works directly, he’s often there in the background for me.

I haven’t produced that many resources on his thought yet, though I have plans to remedy that this coming year, but there is one short work in particular that I do teach on occasion, most often in my classes on Existentialist Philosophy and Literature, and that is his article “Concrete Approaches to Investigating the Ontological Mystery”. You can find an English translation of it in the volume Gabriel Marcel’s Perspectives on The Broken World, which also includes his play The Broken World.

The reason I use this particular piece is that it is great for introducing students to some of the great recurring themes within Marcel’s much broader work. It provides a useful perspective for them on what his version of Existentialism focused upon and elaborated (Marcel is the first person to use the term “existentialisme” in French, but after Sartre attempted to take over the term, Marcel began describing his own work as “Christian Socraticism”).

The original text, “Position du mystère ontologique et ses approches concrètes,” published in Etudes Philosophiques vol. 7, no. 3 in 1933, is a bit more extensive than what has been translated into English. It forms a small portion of the vast, extensive debates about the nature and possibility of Christian philosophy going on from about 1931 to 1935, and originally included not only Marcel’s piece but responses by two other philosophers, Maurice Blondel and Emile Bréhier (which have not been translated into English). Perhaps down the line I’ll produce additional resources on those interesting responses.

For the time being, what I do have available for you are these nine lectures, in both downloadable podcast and video forms. Here they are:

• A Functionalized World And Persons | watch video | listen to podcast

• Mistaken Attitudes to the Ontological Need | watch video | listen to podcast

• Problems, Techniques, and Technology | watch video | listen to podcast

• Meta-Problems and Mystery | watch video | listen to podcast

• Examples of Mysteries | watch video | listen to podcast

• Despair, Betrayal, and Suicide | watch video | listen to podcast

• The Mystery of Hope | watch video | listen to podcast

• Availability (Disponibilité) | watch video | listen to podcast

• Recollection and Assurance | watch video | listen to podcast

I hope they will spur you to check out this short text, and perhaps entice you into further study of Marcel’s work and thought!