How did Gabriel Marcel contrast Descartes’s spectator view of the self with his own participant view?

Gabriel Marcel rejected the Cartesian approach to philosophy, arguing that René Descartes’s methodic doubt created an artificial severance between the intellect and life.1

Marcel characterized Descartes’s perspective as a "spectator" view, in which the self is treated as an isolated subject observing the world from a distance. He argued that this starting point fails to capture the reality of human existence, where there is no fundamental division between consciousness and the world.1

In contrast, Marcel proposed a "participant" view of the self. He maintained that human beings are inherently immersed in the world of concrete experience. Rather than standing apart as detached observers, individuals are active participants in reality. This participant perspective emphasizes that the self is defined by its engagement, commitments, and intersubjective relations, which are fundamental to understanding the nature of human existence.12