Gabriel Marcel’s Idea Of ‘Longing For Transcendence’ And Re-Humanization In Nigeria

The question of ‘Being’ as raised by an ancient philosopher Parmenides has been a perennial problem in philosophy and has continued to dominate philosophical debates till date. For some scholars, the mystery of being is itself a mystery; being is „the indefinable’. This fact results to the enigmatic invitation for a proper contextual philosophical reflection into the nature of being. This is a demand for a philosophical inquiry into the state of our shared Humanity in the present day „broken world‟. The situation of ‘the broken world’ is a state of loss of sense of being. Its consequence is the degradation of being, which in our own case, has indirectly contributed to the worsening insecurity and destruction of lives and properties in Nigeria. The demand for being gives rise to being. Gabriel Marcel in his ontology taught of the question of existence of man as a mystery in which being attains fullness by participating in this mystery. It is something that cannot be investigated by scientific experimentation like the case of objects. One naturally feels superior to anything that is within his mental and physical grip. Some philosophies of being have considered being including the being of man from the perspective of something within human manipulation and control. The consequences of this approach is a form of reductionism in which man is considered as any other object out there that can be tooled. In this sense human dignity is judged by his/her social output and human relationship is built on utility. It is against this background that this paper titled; “Gabriel Marcel’s idea of ‘longing for transcendence and re-humanization in Nigeria”; an existential anthropology of Gabriel Marcel, was chosen as a template for rehumanization in Nigeria. It argues that despite the fact that our own country is plagued with corruption, insecurity, anxiety from unemployment, terrorism, poverty, nepotism etc; it is optimistic that it (Nigeria) can still be re-humanized through restructuring of thoughts, restoration of human dignity and promotion of ideal human relationships via love, fidelity and patriotic acts, thereby discovering the true meaning of life in our meaninglessness situation.