 Abstraction, which is in essence the kind of thinking that characterizes primary reflection, is not always bad per se. However, neither is it, always an “essentially intellectual” operation (Marcel 1962b, p. 156). That is, contrary to what the successes of science and technology might tell us, we may succumb to the spirit of abstraction out of passional reasons rather than intellectual expediency. Abstraction—which is always abstraction from an embodied, concrete existence—can overcome our concrete existence and we may come to view abstracted elements of existence as if they were independent. As Marcel describes it: “it can happen that the mind, yielding to a sort of fascination, ceases to be aware of these prior conditions that justify abstraction and deceives itself about the nature of what is, in itself, nothing more than a method” (Marcel 1962b, p. 156). The significance of this phenomenon for Marcel would be difficult to overstate—indeed, in Man Against Mass Society, Marcel argues that the spirit of abstraction is inherently disingenuous and violent, and a significant factor in the making of war—and there is a sense in which his whole philosophical project is an “obstinate and untiring battle against the spirit of abstraction” (Marcel 1962b, p.  1).[8]