Maurice Merleau-Ponty

George Berkeley's apparently strange view – that nothing exists without a mind except for minds themselves – is notorious. Also well known, and equally perplexing at a superficial level, is his insistence that his doctrine is no more than what is consistent with common sense. It was every bit as crucial for Berkeley that it be demonstrated that the colors are really in the tulip, as that there is nothing that is neither a mind nor something perceived by a mind. (...) In what follows, I shall attempt to re-examine Berkeley's argument in terms of what it appears to have meant to him. I am especially interested in the connection between Berkeley's thought concerning the relation between perception and metaphysics and that of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, with whom, perhaps surprisingly, Berkeley shared a great many intuitions and concerns. Thus part of my objective is to compare and contrast the work of two thinkers who had many common interests, and whose thought frequently led them down similar paths. I shall be especially interested in apparent points of departure, both those that turn out to reflect real divergences and those which reflect confusions of one kind or another. My main objective, however, is not mere textual analysis. Like both Berkeley and Merleau-Ponty, my main hope is to make progress in clarifying how things are. As odd as some of Berkeley's pronouncements may sound to contemporary ears – concerning especially the metaphysical consequences of what he regarded as perceptual facts – I shall argue that, in substance, he was often not far wrong at all – at least as measured by important strands of more contemporary work on the subject. More particularly, I shall contend that for going a long way down an extraordinarily fruitful path which has been subsequently explored more fully by (especially) Martin Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Nelson Goodman and Hilary Putnam, Berkeley deserves considerably more credit than he is usually accorded as a progenitor of contemporary approaches to metaphysical issues. (shrink)

Ce texte cherche à interroger l'œuvre de Merleau-Ponty à travers la métaphore de l'écriture: de la Phénoménologie de la perception jusqu'aux dernières notes du Visible et l'invisible, un même réseau conceptuel revient en effet, celui de la trace, du texte, de l'inscription, et nous avons tenté d'en cerner le sens et la fonction. L'écriture, le « texte du monde », c'est d'abord le sol fondamental, l'originaire dont la phénoménologie est en quête, et qu'elle tente de dévoiler sous les idéalités du (...) langage constitué; c'est ensuite, selon la lecture que Merleau-Ponty entreprend de Saussure, l'écart, la différence interne au procès des significations — l'écriture ou la trace n'étant plus alors ce « texte original » auquel il nous faudrait sans cesse revenir, mais l'épaisseur même du langage se reprenant sans cesse. Parce qu'elle est à la fois à la recherche de l'expérience première et qu'elle a renoncé à l'illusion d'une transparence du langage, d'une coïncidence muette, la philosophie est une bien étrange traduction: ce qu'elle écrit à son tour vise à « rendre » le visible ou le sensible, mais ce sensible « n'offre rien qu'on puisse dire si l'on n'est pas philosophe ou écrivain ». The aim of this text is to probe Merleau-Ponty's work through the metaphor of writing from the Phenomenology of Perception to the final notes of The Visible and The Invisible. A common conceptual system reoccurs, of trace, text, and inscription; we have striven to define its meaning and function, Writing, this « world text », is primarily the native ground which phenomenology attempts to reveal through the idealities of constituted language. Secondly, as Merleau-Ponty endeavours to read through Saussure, it would be the space, the internal difference between significations. In this sense, writing or traces would no longer be this original text to which we must endlessly refer, but the density of language itself. Since philosophy is simultaneously seeking out the primordial experience and has shed the illusion of language transparency, and unvoiced coincidence, its role is paradoxical: what it writes aims at restituting the visible or the sensible, though this sensible « offers nothing that could be said by him who his not a philosopher or a writer ». (shrink)

Francisco Leocata propone una nueva reducción fenomenológica, que llama reducción vital, la cual nombra el centramiento del sujeto encarnado, la necesidad de sabernos traspasados por la historia y por los otros como punto de partida para la producción de conocimiento en el seno de nuestra experiencia de la vida. Esta reducción vital permite pensar al ser humano desde las diversas disciplinas científicas, en diálogo con la fenomenología y la metafísica. Si bien Leocata construye su fenomenología personalista sobre las bases de (...) la fenomenología trascendental de Edmund Husserl, en este trabajo queremos resaltar las posibilidades que se abren a partir de un diálogo más estrecho con Merleau-Ponty, quien ha subrayado el carácter interdisciplinar de la fenomenología. (shrink)

I begin by comparing and contrasting Merleau-Ponty’s metaphysical project with the views of philosophers, such as Wolff, Leibniz, Bergson, Sartre, and Heidegger. Focusing on Merleau-Ponty’s most striking “metaphysical question,” the one about “bringing into being” (faire-être), I then show how it contrasts with notions such as being, non-being, and “being-made” (être fait). Responding to three objections to this theory, I, first, show how “making” (faire) is distinct from “acting.” Second, I argue that “bringing into being” is only actualized in “metaphysical (...) consciousness”, when it shifts from wondering before the paradox to realizing that the contradiction can be fruitful. This is a critique of the foundation metaphysics in Aristotle and Plato. Third, I propose four arguments in order to counter the view that Merleau-Ponty’s metaphysics is just the unthinkable blind spot of his thought. I conclude by showing that his emphasis on consciousness allows us to distinguish three meanings of unconsciousness. (shrink)

生とは一体何か。また生はどのように現れるのか。それは、現象学において生活（としての）世界（Lebenswelt）として現れる。だが、フッサールが試みる生活世界の存在論は、狭義の生の現象学ではない。加え て、彼は生活世界を自我の超越論的生から理解する。この問題を解決するには、ハイデッガー、M.アンリ、レヴィナスによる様々な生の現象学があるが、それに対して徹底的な反論がある。生の現象学を凌駕するには、メ ルロ＝ポンティと共に、生きることの形而上学を取り上げる必要がある。それは、意識の様々な「段階」（驚き及び認識）、「豊かな矛盾」、「フェール（なす、作る、・・・させる）」（faire）等といった概念を通 じて可能になる。.

This article reads Maurice Merleau-Ponty's ontology of the “flesh of the world” alongside the ontology that seems to undergird Frantz Fanon's sociodiagnostics as well as his theory of sociogeny. It argues that reading Fanonian sociogeny in terms of the ambiguity and intercorporeality of the flesh of the world renders the ethical and political imperatives of Fanon's decolonial project all the more pressing, since the “new human” is prefigured—if not totally determined—in the national consciousness obtained by “les damnés” through the decolonization (...) process. It then examines how Sylvia Wynter's Fanonian call to (re)fashion the future of humanness through (re)conceptualizing “being human as praxis,” also seems to rely on this ontology of the flesh of the world. Bringing these arguments together, the article suggests that the conceptual content of the new human can be found in the liberation struggles of les damnés across what Wynter calls the “poverty archipelagos” wrought by colonial humanism. Hence, the “new skin” for which Fanon calls is fashioned through forming international solidarity with les damnés, with the conceptual content of the new humanism emerging sociogenically—and autopoetically—from those struggles themselves. (shrink)

This article explores how the thought that language is expressive, in the sense of bearing emotional or affective meaning, can be made sense of, with particular attention to two authors for whom this thought plays an important role. It begins by introducing the idea of language being “expressive” and using Charles Taylor's work to consider its potential interest, before showing how the expressiveness of language might be accounted for by a position that seems particularly suited to this task, namely Merleau‐Ponty's (...) view of embodied expression in Phenomenology of Perception. I then set out a significant challenge to that position based on Wittgenstein's “private language argument,” which implies there is no necessary connection between language use and a subject's internal (affective) states, thus contesting Merleau‐Ponty's explanatory emphasis on the body. I therefore propose a revised “complex” view of language's expressiveness that meets this Wittgensteinian challenge by reconceiving the body's role. Finally, I draw out some implications of this revised view, arguing that while language itself cannot be considered expressive, it remains significant that we can experience language as expressive. I also suggest that, although apparently threatened, Taylor's position can not only accommodate, but be better understood with, this revised view. (shrink)

In this article, I will pursue three aims. First, I would like to demonstrate the non-transcendental character of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, namely, his claim that a strict division between a priori and a posteriori is an abstraction that derives from a more primordial unity that is given in our lived experience. I will criticize authors such as H. Dreyfus and T. Carman who treat the body and bodily character of our existence as a classical Kantian a priori that functions as a (...) condition of experience without itself being a part of the experience. The claim I would like to defend in this regard is that reflections on the conditions of our experience must themselves be a part of our experience. The second task is to show how Merleau-Ponty’s analysis of temporality helps him to avoid this strict division between a priori and a posteriori. Based on this, I will elucidate some of the most obscure passages of Phenomenology of Perception. Finally, I will claim that the notion of optimal grip can neither be explained by the reference to our body, as Carman claims, or to brains, organisms and their copings with the environment, as Dreyfus argues. Instead, I will claim that the maximal grip is rather a consolidation or intensification of the temporal ecstasy. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to compare the theory of Gestalt qualities, introduced by the Austrian philosopher Christian von Ehrenfels (1859–1932), with the concept of Umwelt, proposed by Jakob von Uexküll (1864–1944). The primary basis for the comparison will be the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961), who extensively discusses the two concepts in his work. In the Uexküll–Ehrenfelsian context, we focus on analysing the similarities and differences of their argumentation and model approaches to understanding the living and non-living natural (...) entities, their mutual communication, development, and ontological grounding. We also consider the role of individual experience with the environment: in that context, the metaphysical frameworks within which the two thinkers operate in their efforts to explain natural phenomena are central to our comparative reflections. (shrink)

Empruntée à Heidegger et devenue méthode d'histoire de la philosophie, la quête d'un impensé est aussi, chez Merleau-Ponty, ce qui anime et caractérise sa propre recherche. Appliquée à Bergson, une telle méthode dévoile un Bergson se faisant, plus riche et plus complexe que ne le laisse supposer le « bersonisme »; elle révèle en outre des aspects essentiels de la pensée de Merleau-Ponty qu'une référence exclusive à la phénoménologie ne pourrait qu'occulter. Heidegger entliehen und zur Methode der Philosophiegeschichte geworden, ist (...) die Suche nach einem Ungedachten auch bei Merleau-Ponty das, was seine eigene Suche vorantreibt und charakterisiert. Auf Bergson bezogen enthüllt eine solche Methode einen Bergson se faisant, der reicher und vielfältiger ist als der « Bergsonismus » es sonst vermuten läßt; Außerdem bringt sie wesentliche Merkmale von Merleau-Pontys Denken ans Licht, die eine exklusive Bezugnahme auf die Phänomenologie nur im Schatten lassen könnte. (shrink)

This paper argues that correlative thinking, a fundamental aspect of Chinese thought often distinguished from rational thinking, is rooted in our situated bodily experiences, constituting a unique mode of sensemaking. It performs a comparative analysis between Zhuangzi's Fish Parable and Merleau‐Ponty's philosophy of embodied perception, focusing on the self‐attunement in our embodied experience and Dao, which remains invisible but gradually reveals its presence as the parable unfolds. The paper illuminates the embodied nature of correlative thinking by exposing the intricate interplay (...) between the self and others, as well as the self and its lived environment. This analysis underscores the reciprocal relationship between Dao and correlative thinking: Dao acts as the origin of correlative thinking, while correlative thinking, in turn, unveils the presence of Dao. This analysis could enrich our understanding of the interplay between the self, others, and the world they inhabit. (shrink)

The essay analyzes some issues in the philosophical works of Merleau-Ponty and Esposito, in particular focusing on the relationship between temporality, institution and phenomenology.

O artigo versa sobre a aparição e os desdobramentos de algumas, dentre as principais abordagens da fenomenologia, no que se refere ao problema do sentido intuitivo do dado fenomenológico. Qual sua natureza? Como deve ser teorizada sua objetividade? Bem como, o sentido de sua imediaticidade? É um artigo bastante simplificador do problema, no qual se tem como objeto apresentar a dinâmica do trabalho fenomenológico no período entre 1874 e 1945 a partir de uma brevíssima exposição das polêmicas internas da tradição (...) fenomenológica, com uma sublocação das características do conceito e destas querelas. (shrink)

Resumen: Merleau-Ponty es el fundador de la fenomenología corporal moderna. Su obra maestra Phenomenology of Perception ha influido enormemente en la dirección del desarrollo de la ciencia cognitiva occidental contemporánea. La teoría del cuerpo recorre el principio y el final de su pensamiento filosófico, adopta el método fenomenológico para continuar con el panorama de la ontología de la teoría del cuerpo y convierte el cuerpo en el campo del sujeto cognitivo. A través de la literatura y el análisis lógico, este (...) artículo intenta resumir la connotación y extensión de la teoría del cuerpo de Merleau-Ponty, describir e interpretar la dimensión ontológica del deporte desde la perspectiva fenomenológica, y acercar el deporte a la comprensión y comunicación del ejercicio mismo. De esta manera, se desea desencadenar el pensamiento para brindar múltiples referencias para el desarrollo del deporte en cada campo. (shrink)

El presente escrito propone una estrategia de lectura para las complejas reflexiones tardías de Merleau-Ponty en torno al concepto de carne. Se sostendrá en el desarrollo del artículo que esta noción debe ser comprendida a partir de las características propias del tipo de ontología que el autor pretende construir y de las notas distintivas de su objeto de estudio. Una vez explicitados estos fundamentos, ellos funcionan como un marco exegético de la problemática de la carne y como guía ordenadora de (...) los elementos que la componen. De acuerdo con esta premisa, el trabajo consta de tres partes. En la primera se expondrá lo que consideramos los rasgos principales de la ontología merleau-pontiana de sus últimos años de producción y el modo en que esta se configura para posicionar la experiencia sensorial como un legítimo objeto de estudio. En la segunda y en la tercera parte se analizará, a través del prisma de lo desarrollado, la cuestión de la carne sobre la base de una propuesta de lectura específica que involucra una dinámica específica entre los conceptos de diferencia y unidad. (shrink)

This paper aims to find, in Merleau-Ponty’s late thinking, a definition of the virtual which aligns with the latest advancements in digital technology while avoiding a reduction to the digital realm or a stark opposition to reality. The virtual is considered as a crucial characteristic in Merleau-Ponty’s late ontology, especially in The Visible and the Invisible, where a “virtual focus” or “virtual center” of the flesh is introduced. The argument posits that Merleau-Ponty’s monism of the flesh results in a dynamic (...) view of virtuality, with significant ontological implications that reshape the relationship between the digital and the analogue. Merleau-Ponty’s concept of the virtual is defined by several key features: it applies to a monist perspective on reality, to a dynamic relationality between dialectic poles, and to the fabric of reality. This interpretation of the virtual implies a divergence from the digital, as virtuality belongs to the whole spectrum of reality. (shrink)

Este trabajo desarolla un análisis comparativo de ciertos temas comunes a las teorías de la percepción de Aristóteles y de Merleau-Ponty. Se sostiene que, de distintos modos y discutiendo en cada caso con diferentes doctrinas «intelectualistas», ambas teorías atribuyen a la percepción sensible capacidades complejas de discriminación, unificación y autopercatación sin mediación de funciones intelectuales. A partir de estos elementos comunes a ambas teorías es posible esbozar una consideración del cuerpo sentiente que no lo reduce a su materialidad, así como (...) una concepción de un sí mismo no restringido al pensamiento. (shrink)

Este artículo propone una interpretación de la lectura que Claude Lefort realiza de la obra de Merleau-Ponty, centrándose en su comprensión de los desplazamientos del autor tanto en sus estudios sobre la percepción como en sus escritos políticos. Se explora, primero, la reflexión de Lefort sobre el pasaje de la fenomenología de la percepción al esbozo de una nueva ontología en el itinerario filosófico de Merleau-Ponty, para luego examinar su lectura crítica de la variación de la posición del autor respecto (...) al marxismo. Finalmente, se indaga cómo comprende Lefort la conexión entre ambas trayectorias, buscando esclarecer el sentido de la interrogación filosófica en su interpretación de estos desplazamientos. (shrink)

This book offers a critical re-appraisal of what is perhaps Merleau-Ponty’s most widely read text, the Preface to his Phenomenology of Perception. Although open and enigmatic text, the Preface is still often used to introduce phenomenology in general and Merleau-Ponty’s work specifically to students, scholars in disciplines other than philosophy, and art practitioners. Taking advantage of the fact that many of his course notes have been posthumously published in the last few decades, this book situates the Preface to the Phenomenology (...) of Perception in the context of Merleau-Ponty's later work and shows how it contains many of the threads on which Merleau-Ponty would later pull. In doing so, the book chapters elaborate key themes in the Preface: “Phenomenology and its Paradoxes,” “Phenomenology and its Method,” “Phenomenology and its Incompletion,” “Phenomenology and Non-Phenomenology." Readers will learn about the radicality of Merleau-Ponty’s early articulation of phenomenology, how much it already suggests the profound transformation of phenomenology usually associated with his more mature work. (shrink)

A number of claims made by Derrida concerning Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of Husserl will be carefully considered and evaluated here. First, Derrida’s claim that Merleau-Ponty’s mis-interprets Husserl’s letter to Lévy-Bruhl will be challenged. Secondly, Derrida’s claim that his criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology can be applied just as well to Merleau-Ponty’s will be challenged. Thirdly, it is a careful consideration of textual evidence that will be used to support these challenges. Finally, Merleau-Ponty’s late lectures will take us back to the Lévy-Bruhl letter (...) and finally to Merleau-Ponty’s own phenomenology of language, one that integrates perception and language and yet that still privileges not eidetic essences or linguistic expression but perception as its primary term. (shrink)

Philosophical anthropology aims to discover what makes us human, but it has produced accounts that exclude some members of our species. It relies often on a non-naturalistic “philosophy of consciousness” and locates humanity in the cognitive capacity to objectively represent things, to reason teleologically and use tools, to use symbols and language, or to be self-conscious and question existence. This work pursues an alternative, thoroughly naturalistic philosophical anthropology in the tradition of Arnold Gehlen. Combining Gehlen’s theory of our behaviorally-detached and (...) culturally-determined impulses with Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s views on intersubjectivity, affect, sexuality, and social institutions, the present work locates the human within the unique structure of human feeling. This produces a truly inclusive account of “the human as the other” or Homo alter. The human is deeply and thoroughly dependent on affective, bodily, communicative bonds, in which others appear as sources of meaning, norms, pleasure, and approbation and disapprobation. This socio-biological account of the human makes institutionality central to our form of life but rejects any political anthropology that attempts to use human nature to prescribe a necessary form to institutions such as the home. Such a social and affective account of the human produces a novel approach to the affect of shame as the feeling of institutional rejection. Ultimately, this work uses philosophical anthropology to combat dehumanization. Our unique form of dependency on others and institutions is present, for example, in infants and the severely disabled who may not possess the forms of consciousness and cognition that traditionally are identified with being human. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty’s relationship with his Sorbonne professor Léon Brunschvicg is usually disregarded or mentioned by scholars as a mere anecdote. Moreover, the rare discussions of the latter’s “critical idealism” usually take at face value Merleau-Ponty’s partial and biased account. In contrast, this paper argues that in order to understand the genesis of Merleau-Ponty’s thought, it is necessary to reassess Brunschvicg’s idealism and his views on the relationship between perception and scientific knowledge. Particular attention is drawn to a specific chapter of Brunschvicg’s (...) masterwork L’Expérience humaine et la causalité physique, entitled “Théorie intellectualiste de la perception”. Therein is articulated the theory of perception that Merleau-Ponty never ceased to contest, and of which his entire oeuvre constitutes a reversal. However, far from highlighting only the elements of opposition, the author also points out the thematic continuity that survives the generational gap between the two authors. (shrink)

본 논문은 메를로-퐁티(Maurice Merleau-Ponty, 1908-1962)의 현상학적 시각으로 리처드 세라(Richard Serra, 1939- )의 장소 특정적 미술(site-specific art)에 관한 예술철학적 고찰을 목적으로 한다. 장소 특정적 미술에서 몸의 체험은 가장 중요한 작품완성 요소이다. 2차원의 회화를 감상하는데 있어서 기본적으로 몸의 일부인 눈의 시각적 체험이 중요하기는 하지만, 장소 특정적 미술에서는 시각 외에도 청각, 촉각, 후각, 운동감각과 공간 감각 등의 다양한 감각이 융합된 총체적 몸의 체험이 부각 된다. 이러한 몸의 체험은 육체와 정신으로 이분화되는 데카르트(René Descartes, 1596-1650)적 사유 방식이나 게슈탈트의 시지각 이론(Gestalttheorie)으로는 이해하기 힘들다고 할 수 있으며, (...) 이러한 사실을 염두에 두고 본 논문에서는 메를로-퐁티의 몸에 관한 사상을 중심으로 리처드 세라의 장소 특정적 미술에 대한 이해를 도모하고자 한다. 더불어 기존의 비평과 연구에서 한 걸음 나아가기 위해, 세라 작품의 현상학적 측면과 그의 일본 선(禪) 정원에서의 경험에 함께 주목하면서, ‘선 정원 경험의 현상학적 측면’과 ‘동양의 유(有)와 무(無)’ 개념에 대한 논의와 함께 세라의 작품세계에 관한 고찰을 진행한다. (shrink)

Gianluca De Fazio’s book Avversità e margini di gioco. Studio sulla soggettività in Merleau-Ponty presents precise and original research along several nodes of great importance in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical production, such as subjectivity, expression, passivity, nature, history. By focusing on, without limiting himself to, the 1950’s period, the author declares that he aims at a denaturalization of nature and a dehistoricization of history: an overcoming of dichotomies which, though faithfully following the Merleau-Pontian path, does not fail to have a Deleuzian overtones. (...) The issues of the book are also, and above all, political, shown in the considerations of the task of philosophy. (shrink)

This book draws on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology to develop new and promising solutions to contemporary debates about perception. In providing an extension and defense of Merleau-Ponty’s account of perceptual content and of the relation between perception and the world, it demonstrates the enduring value of Merleau-Ponty’s insights for philosophy of perception today. -/- The author focuses on two main topics: the contents and the nature of perception. In the first half of this book, the author tackles debates about the content of (...) perception, namely, what sorts of properties or features of the world reveal themselves to us in perception and in what modes. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s description of perceptual “sense,” the author argues that perception has a unique kind of content, which cannot be adequately described in terms of sensations or concepts. He then shows how this account of perceptual sense can clarify debates about the richness of perceptual content, including whether we can perceive moral properties. In the second half, he turns to the nature of perception. Here he argues that Merleau-Ponty’s account of perceptual intentionality makes available a powerful combination of the core insights of two main contemporary approaches to this question: realism and intentionalism. The author shows how this combination can be developed, defends it from objections, and explains how it is equipped to deal with problems posed by the existence of illusions and hallucinations. -/- Merleau-Ponty and Contemporary Philosophy of Perception will appeal to scholars and advanced students working on phenomenology and the philosophy of perception. (shrink)

abstract: I argue that Merleau-Ponty's reading of Hegel's account of experience exerts a significant and hitherto overlooked influence on his attempt to recast Phénoménologie de la perception 's account of intentionality. This reading informs two important claims of his later projects: that intentional relations are more fundamental than their relata, and that a metaphysical condition irreducible to consciousness or object constitutes the structure of intentionality. I argue that these positions inform key tenets of reversibility, and that a revisionary interpretation of (...) Hegel's absolute offers Merleau-Ponty a model for the principle that individuates the basic conditions of experience. In addition to demonstrating that he was a more assiduous reader of Hegel than many commentators assume, and highlighting some overlooked debts to Hegel, these results show that Merleau-Ponty's later thought inherits significant idealist commitments, which should motivate us to reconsider its standing within post-Kantian philosophical currents. (shrink)

This paper examines two twenty-first-century developments in the enactive approach in philosophy and the cognitive sciences. The first is the surging interest in Hans Jonas, which begins with Weber and Varela's 'Life After Kant' (2002) and continues up to the present. The second is the 'social turn' that the enactive approach has taken, especially after De Jaegher and Di Paolo's (2007) work on participatory sense-making. We look at these two developments through the lens of the problem of other minds. We (...) argue that they are incompatible due to a residual solipsism in Jonasian phenomenology. Ultimately, this leaves enactive theory with a choice between embracing Jonas or embracing the social turn in enactive theory. We recommend replacing Jonasian influences with those from the late work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. We argue that enactivism can evade the problem of other minds using Merleau-Ponty's discussion of 'flesh' and 'expression'. (shrink)

Embodied Idealism argues that Maurice Merleau-Ponty's early thought stands as a form of transcendental idealism. In spite of his overt criticisms of idealism, Merleau-Ponty holds that our experience is inextricably structured by our minds, and that reality is ontologically dependent on the mind.

This paper aims to explore some aspects of Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of perception (1945), proceeding from the chapter on attention – introductory section – to evaluate its redefining outcome, and to place it in dialectic with Paul Ricoeur’s research on Freedom and Nature (1950) – first section, chap. III. The hypothesis is that this work can help to shed new light both on a possible understanding of attention in the phenomenological perspective and that it can contribute to determine better the relationship (...) between attention and the dimension of the involuntary. In the background, this opens up the dilemma about the possibility that a phenomenological approach to the unconscious could be a better explanation than a naturalising approach. (shrink)

O presente texto se propõe reconstruir algumas das linhas principais do problema da articulação entre percepção e linguagem em Merleau-Ponty. Para tanto, parte-se da questão da origem da linguagem, na _Fenomenologia da percepção_, e se acompanha seus desdobramentos e reformulações ao longo do período intermediário (década de 1950), quando Merleau-Ponty se aproxima da linguística de Saussure, e do período final (década de 1960), quando Merleau-Ponty desenvolve seu conceito de Ser bruto. Paulatinamente, a percepção passa a apresentar a mesma estrutura diacrítica (...) da linguagem, um solo originário mudo, mas expressivo. E a linguagem aparece cada vez mais como a elevação desse solo à expressividade propriamente linguística. (shrink)

The article proposes to sketch an analogy between, on the one hand, linguistic learning and sound dialogue in humanist music therapy and, on the other hand, certain reflections of Maurice Merleau-Ponty: in particular, the centrality of corporeality in the learning, treated in the Phenomenology of Perception and in the courses on the psychology and pedagogy of the child, and the status of inter-corporeality developed through reflections on passivity and the metaphor of flesh. We will trace an analysis of the music (...) therapy of Giulia Cremaschi Trovesi, with reference to the linguistic and musical gesture, through the Merleau-Pontian notion of praktognosia, and of the sound dialogue with reference to institution and intercorporeity. Through an interpretation of music in the terms adopted by Stéphanie Ménasé and in reference to Merleau-Pontian passivity in artistic creation, our objective is to define the musical institution of the vibrating body in music therapy in terms analogous to the institution of the subject according to Merleau-Ponty and, consequently, to find, in the sound dialogue, the intercorporeity which anticipates the individuation of the subject, by describing the communicative authenticity of the musical-therapeutic encounter. (shrink)