Gabriel Marcel uses a Phenomenological Method less technical than Husserl.

He calls it Secondary Reflection Primary Reflection The kind of reflection in which I place myself outside the thing I am inquiring on. An ob-jectum (thrown infront). It has nothing top do with my self nor I have anything to do with it. Secondary Reflection The kind of reflection in which I recognize that I am part of the thing I am investigating , and therefore , my discussion is sub-jective (thrown beneath). I have something to do with it and It has something to do with me. Because I participate in the thing, I cannot tear it apart into a clear and fixed ideas; I have to describe and bring to light its unique wholeness in my concrete experience. Human Nature 1. Man as Intermediary a. as being in the world b. as being at the world 2. Man as Intersubjectivity a. as being through others b. as being with others c. as being for others 3. Man as a Self Project 4. Man as being unto death 5. Man as being unto God Three Basic Orientation of Ones Existence 1. World 2. Others 3. God

I exist as Sentio Ergo Sum ( I feel therefore I am) is the indubitable touchtone of ones existence, it must be taken as indissoluble unity: the I cannot be separated from the exist, pertaining essentially to sense experience. Marcel invokes an image, that of a child coming up to him with shining eyes, saying: Here I am! What a Luck!. The statement of the child cannot be separated from its act of existing. This is in the word exist or existere which in Latin means to stand out, or to manifest. The indubitable touchtone of ones existence is linked to kind of exclamatory awareness of oneself, as in the expression of the child ( the leaps , the cries..etc. The immediacy of self awareness in the case of the ADULTS maybe restrained, crusted over by habits, compartmentalized life: it is pretty certain, in fact, that we are are tending to become bureaucrats not only with our outward behaviors but in our relation with ourselves, and because of bureaucracy we interpose thicker and thicker screens between ourselves and existence. This feeling that makes known my experience is what Marcel calls: SYMPATHETIC MEDIATION The experience is what Marcel calls: NON-INTRUMENTAL COMMUNION If we want to be faithful to the experience, we need to use concept that points to this feeling: DIRECTIONAL CONCEPTS The whole process can be fulfilled only if we inter into SECONDARY REFLECTION and humbly returned to the experienced reality of ordinary life. Reflection is rooted inexperience, but there are two kinds: Primary and secondary. Primary Reflection breaks the unity of experience and is the foundation of scientific knowledge. This is equivalent to the Natural Attitude in Husserl. Secondary Reflection recuperates the unity of original experience. It does not go against the data of primary reflection but refuses to accept it as final. Example#1: Who am I? Primary Reflection: I am so and so,born on this day, in such a place, with height and weightetc.. items on the I.D. card. Secondary Reflection: I am more than the items above.. I enter into my inner core. Example#2: My Body

Primary Reflection: a body is like other bodies.., detached from the I , the body examined by a doctor, studied by medical students, or the body sold by the prostitute. Secondary Reflection: I am my body, I feel the pain when my dentist pulls my tooth. I feel a terrible feeling when I sell my body( prostitute). SUMMARY Phenomenology as a Method is a method in which the relation between the investigator and the investigated object is considered to belong essentially to the object itself. In cases where the object of investigation is Human Being, phenomenology becomes the Method in which all relevant items of research are exclusively considered only with regard to the totality of Human Being.