This book contends that Gabriel Marcel’s reflective method is animated by two extraphilosophical commitments. Marcel’s first extraphilosophical commitment is to an ethico-religious insight where the highest ontological exigency for human persons is to participate in being. Marcel’s second extraphilosophical commitment is to battle the ever-present threat of dehumanization in late Western modernity. The importance of these two commitments to Marcel’s reflective method can be appreciated better if one views it as a teleological suspension of philosophy. Unfortunately, Marcel undermines his secon ... More

This book contends that Gabriel Marcel’s reflective method is animated by two extraphilosophical commitments. Marcel’s first extraphilosophical commitment is to an ethico-religious insight where the highest ontological exigency for human persons is to participate in being. Marcel’s second extraphilosophical commitment is to battle the ever-present threat of dehumanization in late Western modernity. The importance of these two commitments to Marcel’s reflective method can be appreciated better if one views it as a teleological suspension of philosophy. Unfortunately, Marcel undermines his second extraphilosophical commitment by neglecting to examine what is perhaps the most prevalent threat of depersonalization in Western modernity, antiblack racism. Given Marcel’s professed commitment to battle against the forces of dehumanization in late Western modernity, any Marcellian reflective method that is faithful to Marcel’s commitment to combat dehumanization should account for how antiblack racism has affected modern human persons, especially Africana persons. Tunstall thinks Gordon’s existential phenomenology is a promising candidate for providing this sort of account.