Anthony Malagon

Traditional philosophizing has generally depended upon reason as its primary access to truth. Subjective experiences such as feelings, the passions, and emotions have typically been viewed as secondary to reason, untrustworthy, or both. The Religious Existentialists and the Redemption of Feeling revisits how the movement of existentialism, via the religious existentialists, has contributed to a rethinking of the role of subjective experience, in contrast to the rationalist and idealist traditions, thus reframing the importance of feelings in general for the philosophical enterprise as a whole. Through the considerations of a variety of thinkers, this collection provides a fresh look at the contributions of twentieth-century existentialists, thereby re-contextualizing the very notion of existentialism, offering a powerful and genuine re-evaluation of the significance of subjectivity, and underscoring the continued relevance of the religious existentialists.

Thomas Anderson has argued that the philosophies of Kierkegaard and Marcel are mutually exclusive. He explains that although Kierkegaard and Marcel have much in common, their two paths are ultimately “fundamentally irreconcilable.” Although an ecumenical interpretation of these philosophers is rejected by Anderson, the following article attempts to challenge this view, and provide further reflection upon their approach to God. It undertakes a more detailed analysis of their supposed opposition, and defends the view that their differences are, in fact, typically misunderstood, exaggerated, or both, and that the judgment of mutual exclusivity is at very least not well founded, if not a misunderstanding of the common themes in both philosophers. The article explores the view that Kierkegaard and Marcel‟s philosophies can, in the end, be reconciled in a fruitful way.