 In contrast, “the characteristic of the soul which is present and at the disposal of others is that it cannot think in terms of cases; in its eyes there are no cases at all” (Marcel 1995, p. 41). The person who is disponible, who is available or disposable to others, has an entirely different experience of her place in the world: she acknowledges her interdependence with other people. Relationships of disponibilité are characterized by presence and communication between persons qua other, qua freedom—a communication and communion between persons who transcend their separation without merging into a unity, that is, while remaining separate to some degree. “It should be obvious at once that a being of this sort is not an autonomous whole, is not in [the] expressive English phrase, self-contained; on the contrary such a being is open and exposed, as unlike as can be to a compact impenetrable mass” (Marcel 1951a, p. 145). To be disponible to the other is to be present to and for her, to put one’s resources at her disposal, and to be open and permeable to her.