The Philosophy of Existence, among the first translations into English of the Catholic existentialist Gabriel Marcel, is composed of four distinct essays—“On the Ontological Mystery”; “Existence and Human Freedom”; “Testimony and Existentialism”; and “An Essay in Biography.” Together, the essays articulate the integral elements, constitutive terminology, and characteristic anthropology of Marcel’s philosophy of existence, and describe its marked differences with the atheist existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre, and its subtle—yet crucial—departures from the existentialism of Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers.

Provocative and penetrating, The Philosophy of Existence provides an analysis of enduring relevance on modern man and the modern condition, worthy of repeated readings.