PRÉSENCE ET IMMORTALITÉ

" I have often found my attention focused on the words "my system" or "my philosophy" and been struck with horror at their ludicrous character. " Horror of systems is the beginning of true philosophy. " No philosopher worthy of the name has to my mind ever been able to apprehend his own thought as a prerogative or a possession, unless it were in the course of polemics in which he had to defend it as one defends one's life. But one must ask oneself, if from the moment it is treated as a "having", a philosophy doesn't degrade itself and become transformed into its own cadaver. " Gabriel Marcel, we see, is repulsed by frozen thought, by irrevocable answers that cancel out kill any questioning.
This book Presence and Immortality includes pages from his Metaphysical Journal (1938-43), plus two essays, one on the general characteristics of his thought, and the other on the existential premises of immortality. This books is essentially a series of reflections about everyday life, sin and death. These reflections, like a musical theme and variations, occur and reoccur throughout the work. Uneasiness is not absent from this work, for if philosophy tends universally toward finding a certain inner peace, a sort of harmony, these cannot be given at the outset. Aspiration toward them is experienced as nostalgia. " To be uneasy, is to search for one's center. "

GABRIEL MARCEL