‘If there is a plot': Gabriel Marcel and Second-Degree Reflection

I address the relationship between Marcel and phenomenology. Then, I focus my attention on some central issues of Marcel’s thought: the notion of body, the notion of existence, and the notion of “secondary reflection” (or “second degree reflection”). These themes are reciprocally connected, and the connection will be clear by the end of the essay, in the context of a discussion of the problem of universality. Finally, I try to answer the question: is it possible to speak of a “Marcellian hermeneutics”?