Abstract

The primary task of my dissertation is to clarify the relationship between phenomenology and poststructuralism. In doing this, I analyze the role of paradox in both traditions. I show, for example, that Merleau-Ponty's arguments for the paradoxical nature of perception are to be seen as a continuation of Husserl's fundamental project, a project I claim is itself implicitly motivated by an effort to account for paradox. Merleau-Ponty thus makes explicit what was already implicitly at work within Husserl's thought. ;Meleau-Ponty argues, in short, that to account for the difference between self and other requires recognizing the paradoxical unity of self and other that is the condition for this difference. Furthermore, although Husserl argues for a paradoxical unity of self and other, it is a non-corporeal unity--i.e., a self-constituting consciousness, whereas Merleau-Ponty claims this paradoxical unity is corporeal, i.e., it is the perceiving body. It is this move which Merleau-Ponty believes resolves the problems he sees in Husserl's account of the other. ;As I turn to the poststructuralist tradition, my focus is primarily on the work of Deleuze. I show that there is a fundamental difference between Deleuze and phenomenology's understanding of paradox. This difference reflects phenomenology's adherence to traditional transcendental philosophy. In essence, Deleuze feels that neither Husserl nor Merleau-Ponty adequately address the role of paradox because they each claim it is conditioned by the identity of something more fundamental: i.e., the transcendental ego for Husserl, the body or Being for Merleau-Ponty. Deleuze, however, argues that the fundamental transcendental condition is paradox itself, and it is this move which characterizes the contrast between Deleuze's transcendental philosophy of difference and Husserl and Merleau-Ponty's transcendental philosophy of identity. ;In addition to these discussions, I on several occasions refer to the work that has been done in the analytic tradition. While being sensitive to the differences between the analytic and continental traditions, I reveal points of contact or overlap, and hence I attempt to lay the groundwork for the possibility of future dialogues.