Why did Gabriel Marcel argue that people do not simply possess their bodies?

French philosopher Gabriel Marcel argued that people do not simply possess their bodies because the concept of ownership implies a detachment that is impossible to achieve regarding one's own embodiment.1

Marcel distinguished between the realms of "being" and "having." "Having" involves taking possession of objects through conceptual mastery and detachment, whereas "being" refers to a state of participation where experience is unified before any abstract analysis. He contended that viewing the body as an object or an instrument to be "possessed" is a distortion of the self. Instead, he proposed the more accurate assertion, "I am my body," emphasizing that one cannot look upon their own body as an external object to be solved or analyzed without ceasing to experience it as "my body".1

Because the human subject is directly involved in their own embodiment, Marcel categorized it as a "mystery"—a situation where the questioner cannot separate themselves from the data to study it objectively, unlike a "problem" that can be solved through primary reflection.1