Abstract

Both Gabriel Marcel and Martin Heidegger hold that the proper task of philosophy is to think mystery. This is not the unknown as such; rather it is what ever again gives rise to thought. For both philosophers, representational thinking is inadequate to this subject matter. The present study explicates their attempts to approach mystery and identifies their final difference. For Marcel, the domain of mystery is opened in interpersonal presence; for Heidegger, mystery is opened in the appropriation of being. Marcel’s mystery gives rise to thinking because of its fullness; Heidegger’s mystery gives rise to thinking because it withdraws.