Em Le Philosophe et son Ombre, Merleau-Ponty agencia uma lapidar metáfora no intuito de circunscrever certo domínio de experiência, em rigor, pré-reflexiva, que estaria presente, particularmente, nos últimos trabalhos de Husserl: a sombra. Afinal, o que, mais propriamente, teria permanecido à “sombra” do filósofo? Ora, o pathos corolário do saber ocidental: “a tradição como esquecimento das origens”. Husserl então entrevê outra tarefa cara à fenomenologia, aquém e além de seu idealismo transcendentalmente professo: o retorno à Lebenswelt como horizonte pré-teorético. Trata-se, (...) arqueologicamente, de escavar uma camada de evidência originária, isto é, um mundo bruto, em estado barroco ou selvagem como ainda não pensado. É essa zona de sombra como emblema concreto do Eu puro que não pode mais ser “posta entre parênteses”. (shrink)

Our environment is changing rapidly, as is the spectrum of possible relationships we can entertain with it. Against this background, one important task emerging in contemporary philosophical discussion concerns defining the status of contemporary images and the "iconic spaces" we encounter with ever-increasing frequency in their various forms. Within this context, the dimension of perception seems to be losing its primacy over the image, making a philosophical description of the relationships between image and reality all the more necessary. Among images, (...) the classical distinction between documentary and fiction has been drastically called into question, and along with it the nature of the emotions and values we experience in these two domains. Rozzoni promotes a phenomenology of the image, that is, a return to a description of images that starts from their essential features while avoiding simplistic dichotomies. By elucidating images’ intimate relationship with phantasy and aesthetic experience and their role in shaping our experience of "reality," this book develops a perspectival notion of "truth" intended to shed light on our contemporary interactions with images and the events, emotions, and values we experience through them. (shrink)

_Essays on Beauvoir’s influences, contemporary engagements, and legacy in the philosophical tradition._.

_Explores the continuities and discontinuities in the work of Henri Bergson and Gilles Deleuze._.

Explores the continuities and discontinuities in the work of Henri Bergson and Gilles Deleuze.

Few researchers of the past made sense of the collapse of representations in the quantum domain, and looked for a new process of sense-making below the level of representations: the level of the phenomenology of perception and action; the level of the elaboration of knowledge out of experience. But some recent philosophical readings of quantum physics all point in this direction. They all recognize the fact that the quantum revolution is a revolution in our conception of knowledge. In these recent (...) readings of quantum physics, quantum states are primarily generators of probabilistic valuations. Accordingly, they should not be seen as statements about what is the case, but as statements about what each agent can reasonably expect to be the case. Three features of such non-interpretational, non-committal approaches to quantum physics strongly evoke the phenomenological epistemology. These are: their deliberately first-person stance; their suspension of judgment about a presumably external domain of objects, and subsequent redirection of attention towards the activity of constituting these objects; their perception-like conception of quantum knowledge. But beyond phenomenological epistemology, these new approaches of quantum physics also make implicit use of a phenomenological ontology. Chris Fuch’s participatory realism thus formulates a non-external variety of realism for one who is deeply immersed in reality. But participatory realism strongly resembles Merleau-Ponty’s endo-ontology, which is a phenomenological ontology for one who deeply participates in Being. This remarkable analogy is supported by Merleau-Ponty himself. Indeed, 50 years before QBism, Merleau-Ponty acknowledged the strong kinship between the status of quantum mechanics and his phenomenology of embodiment. He did so in two texts that remained unpublished until after his death: Visible and invisible, and the Lectures on Nature. The final part of this article is then devoted to a study of Merleau-Ponty’s conception of quantum physics. (shrink)

Intersemiotic translation (IT) was defined by Roman Jakobson (The Translation Studies Reader, Routledge, London, p. 114, 2000) as “transmutation of signs”—“an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal sign systems.” Despite its theoretical relevance, and in spite of the frequency in which it is practiced, the phenomenon remains virtually unexplored in terms of conceptual modeling, especially from a semiotic perspective. Our approach is based on two premises: (i) IT is fundamentally a semiotic operation process (semiosis) and (ii) (...) IT is a deeply iconic-dependent process. We exemplify our approach by means of literature to dance IT and we explore some implications for the development of a general model of IT. (shrink)

This paper argues that Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutical philosophy attempts to reopen the question of human transcendence in contemporary terms. While his conception of language as self-transcending is deeply Husserlian, Ricoeur also responds to the analytical challenge when he deploys a basic distinction in Fregean logic in order to clarify Heidegger’s phenomenology of world. Ricoeur’s commitment to a transcendental view is evident in his conception of narrative, which enables him to emphasize the role of the performative in literary reading. The meaning (...) of the self in time provides Ricoeur with a discursive basis for distinguishing his own position from that of Kant and other philosophers in the transcendental tradition. (shrink)

Can phenomenology contribute to the burgeoning science of consciousness? Dennett’s reply would probably be that it very much depends upon the type of phenomenology in question. In my paper I discuss the relation between Dennett’s heterophenomenology and the type of classical philosophical phenomenology that one can find in Husserl, Scheler and Merleau-Ponty. I will in particular be looking at Dennett’s criticism of classical phenomenology. How vulnerable is it to Dennett’s criticism, and how much of a challenge does his own alternative (...) constitute? I will argue that there are some rather marked differences between these two approaches to consciousness, but as I also hope to make clear, Dennett’s own account of where the differences are located is off target and ultimately based on a somewhat flawed conception of what classical phenomenology amounts to. (shrink)

The article examines some of the main theses about self-awareness developed in recent analytic philosophy of mind (especially the work of Bermúdez), and points to a number of striking overlaps between these accounts and the ones to be found in phenomenology. Given the real risk of unintended repetitions, it is argued that it would be counterproductive for philosophy of mind to ignore already existing resources, and that both analytical philosophy and phenomenology would profit from a more open exchange.

To address the theological turn in phenomenology, this paper sets out critical arguments opposing the theist phenomenology of Michel Henry and Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of the event. Henry’s phenomenology has been overlooked in recent commentaries compared with, for example, Jean-Luc Marion’s work. It will be shown here that Henry’s philosophy presents a detailed novel turn in phenomenology structured according to critical moves against positions developed from Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty. This demonstration is done through a strong contrast with Deleuze and (...) a short engagement with Quentin Meillassoux. The paper presents an argument against the theological turn on the grounds that it misunderstands the form of affectivity when compared to Deleuze’s work on affect and event. It will be argued that Henry’s search for a free-standing affect deduced as a condition for any appearance underplays the way any affect is included in many causal and transcendentally determined series such that any notion of the pure affect independent of other processes is a fiction. The loss of this pure affect entails the questioning of the theological turn in Henry. (shrink)

While Merleau-Ponty’sPhenomenology of Perceptionrelies on the descriptive register of the body proper, his Sorbonne lectures on child psychology investigate the genesis of the experience of a body as one’s own. I demonstrate the uniqueness of Merleau-Ponty’s account of the narcissistic affect and sociality involved in this developmental process, distinguishing his account vis-à-vis Wallon’s and Lacan’s studies of the mirror stage. I conclude that in Merleau-Ponty’s account, (1) the experience of the body proper is not singular, but encompasses a range of (...) phenomenological variation; and (2) the genesis of the body proper is not confined to the mirror stage. The production of bodily boundaries is an ongoing process identified not only with its advent in childhood, but also with adult emotional life. The boundaries between inner and outer domains of perception are not merely discovered, but must be negotiated and cultivated in the intercorporeal affective dramas of adult life. (shrink)

La pregunta por el tiempo, junto a la pregunta por el cuerpo y el lenguaje, ocupa un lugar central en la filosofía de Merleau-Ponty. La restitución ontológica de la vida sensible, corporal -proyecto en el que se podría enmarcar toda su obra- lleva consigo una revisión de la idea del tiempo. El tiempo, sostiene Merleau-Ponty, se forma en nuestra experiencia corporal. Este tiempo en 'gestación', en 'estado naciente', es lo que el autor llama tiempo salvaje. Este trabajo se centra en (...) mostrar que la concepción del sentido en la obra de Merleau-Ponty -particularmente sus reflexiones sobre el sentido de la experiencia sensible y del lenguaje- se encuentra atravesada por la idea de un tiempo salvaje. Esta idea la desarrollamos en tres apartados: 1. introducción, 2. El ser salvaje del tiempo y la formación del sentido y 3. Tiempo y lenguaje. The question of the time, along with the question of the body and language, is central to the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty. The ontological restitution of the sensible, corporal life -project in which all his work- could be framed, and carries itself a review of the idea of time. "Time" says Merleau-Ponty, is formed in our body experience. This time in 'period of gestation' in 'nascent state', is what the author will call wild time. This work focuses on showing how the conception of the sense in the work of Merleau-Ponty, particularly his reflections on the sense of the sensible experience and the language, which is crossed by the idea of a wild time. We develop this idea into three sections: 1. introduction, 2. The wild being of the time and the formation of the sense and 3. Time and language. (shrink)

Nuestro punto de partida es la concepción de Merleau-Ponty del lenguaje como "habla". Sostenemos que esta, como experiencia corporal del lenguaje -como lenguaje "en" nosotros-, permite comprender el fenómeno de la /nter-culturalidad como un fenómeno esencialmente /ntra-cultural, en el sentido de una experiencia de la cultura "desde dentro", es decir, desde la experiencia que cada quien hace del lenguaje. Este carácter endógeno e individual de pensar la cultura pone en evidencia, sin embargo, un "entre-lazamiento" recíproco originario entre lo propio y (...) lo extraño que impide de entrada privilegiar ya sea una visión universalista o totalizante o bien individualista o regionalista de la cultura. En dos momentos doy cuenta de este planteamiento: 1. Mundo de la vida y diversidad cultural y 2. El habla como lugar de acceso a las culturas. Our starting point is the conception in Merleau Ponty of language as "speech". We support this concept as corporal experience of language -as language "in" us - allows to understand the phenomenon of ¿nter-culturality as an essentially ¿ntra-cultural phenomenon, in the sense of an experience of culture "from within", that is to say; from the experience that everyone does with the language. This endogenous and individual character of thinking about culture highlights, however, a reciprocal "entanglement" originated among one's own and the strange that initially prevents to privilege, even a universal or totalizing or either an individualistic or regionalist vision of culture. Two moments I take on this approach: 1. World of life and cultural diversity. 2. Speech as an access place to the cultures. (shrink)

Bennett and Hacker criticize a number of neuroscientists and philosophers for attributing capacities which belong to the human being as a whole, like perceiving or deciding, to a “part” of the human being, viz. the brain. They call this type of mistake the “mereological fallacy”. Interestingly, the authors say that these capacities cannot be ascribed to the mind either. They reject not only materialistic monism but also Cartesian dualism, arguing that many predicates describing human life do not refer to physical (...) or mental properties, nor to the sum of such properties. I agree with this important principle and with the critique of the mereological fallacy which it underpins, but I have two objections to the authors’ view. Firstly, I think that the brain is not literally a part of the human being, as suggested. Secondly, Bennett and Hacker do not offer an account of body and mind which explains in a systematic way how the domain of phenomena which transcends the mental and the physical relates to the mental and the physical. I first argue that Helmuth Plessner’s philosophical anthropology provides the kind of account we need. Then, drawing on Plessner, I present an alternative view of the mereological relationships between brain and human being. My criticism does not undercut Bennett and Hacker’s diagnosis of the mereological fallacy but rather gives it a more solid philosophical–anthropological foundation. (shrink)

This paper reflects on the idea of ‘visualization’ of legal rules as part of an account of rule following in action. Presenting an alternative to Van Schooten’s (Jurisprudence and communication. Deborah Charles, Liverpool, 2012) account of interpretation, I first distinguish between two modes of interpretation: rehearsing and discursive. I argue that the former is the more basic one, relating to our respecting sources, rather than noticing signs, in action. In other (Wittgensteinian) words, we have to understand how we take guidance (...) from rules. This account can profit from an analysis of what ‘seeing’ amounts to. Taking my cue from Merleau-Ponty, I point to the intertwinement between agent and world in seeing, in rule-following, and eventually in legal rule-following. The proof of the pudding is an alternative account of the time-honoured paradigm of legal interpretation: Hart’s ‘no vehicles in the park’. I show how this example is predicated on detecting ‘depth-clues’ in a rule, which allow an agent to correlate his vantage point to a vanishing point of a rule. The example illustrates a key-feature of rule following: reflexivity. I cannot follow a rule unless I project myself into its picture. (shrink)

Paul ThagardCambridge, MA: MIT press, 2006313 pages, ISBN: 026220164X (hbk); $36.00Can human beliefs and inferences be understood as a form of coherence maximization? This question underlies much o...

This paper explores the question concerning the relationship between basic and higher layers of experience and self-experience. The latter distinction implicitly presupposes the idea of a univocal foundation. After explaining the formal ontological law of foundation, an attempt is made to clarify how the idea of foundation may be suitable to understand the relationship among moments, or layers, of self-experience. To this aim, the phenomenological descriptions of self- and world-experience in dementia and schizophrenia are compared. The comparison between these two, (...) in many ways radically different, pathologies allows us to highlight both the potentialities and the limits of resorting to the foundational relationship for the description of lived experience. Taking the challenges coming from the description of dementia and schizophrenia into serious consideration, the meaning of the “stratified” account of self-experience will be eventually reassessed, and a way to complement the idea of foundation among layers will be proposed. (shrink)

The term “social cognition” can be construed in different ways. On the one hand, it can refer to the cognitive faculties involved in social activities, defined simply as situations where two or more individuals interact. On this view, social systems would consist of interactions between autonomous individuals; these interactions form higher-level autonomous domains not reducible to individual actions. A contrasting, alternative view is based on a much stronger theoretical definition of a truly social domain, which is always defined by a (...) set of structural norms; moreover, these social structures are not only a set of constraints, but actually constitute the possibility of enacting worlds that would just not exist without them. This view emphasises the heteronomy of individuals who abide by norms that are impersonal, culturally inherited and to a large extent independent of the individuals. Human beings are socialised through and through; consequently, all human cognition is social cognition. The article argues for this second position. Finally, it appears that fully blown autonomy actually requires heteronomy. It is the acceptance of the constraints of social structures that enables individuals to enter new realms of common meaningfulness. The emergence of social life marks a crucial step in the evolution of cognition; so that at some evolutionary point human cognition cannot but be social cognition. (shrink)

I examine the phenomenological philosophies of Merleau-Ponty and Sartre as possible responses to contemporary studies of interpersonal relatedness in cognitive science, especially the experimental studies of infant's imitating simple facial gestures of adults. I discuss the implications and the challenges raised by the experimental studies to the dominant phenomenological accounts of intersubjectivity, but also envision how phenomenology may help to interpret the findings about infantile imitation in ways that favor the embodied perceptual connectedness between the self and the other, without (...) recourse to the inner private mind postulate endorsed by the theory of mind and shared by the experimental researchers of imitation. (shrink)

A new framework for phenomenological psychology is proposed based on Husserl’s static and genetic methods. Static phenomenology holds a eidetic psychology centred on the processes of noetic-noematic constitution and elaborates typologies and general notions about human beings in connection with the world. Genetic analysis is research into facticity, it focus on the personal history of a subject, which is constantly in the process of becoming. When the temporal dimension of consciousness is considered, the phenomenological method becomes ‘static’, as it excludes (...) the factitious dimension of self, its personal and individual history, sedimented in layers of meaning, which are in part pre-reflective, non-thematic and anonymous to the self, but which nevertheless continue to influence the experience of itself with the other and with the world. This paper aims to present some of the fundamental principals of genetic phenomenology and it’s application to existential-phenomenological psychotherapy. There are three main aspects underlying genetic-phenomenological analysis as it is being proposed: inner time-consciousness theory, the experiential self and the theory of passive geneses. (shrink)

A arquitetura fenomenológica não possui talvez a solidez e a homogeneidade de uma escola ou de um movimento em sentido estrito, mas representa, no entanto, um vetor notável do pensamento arquitetônico contemporâneo. Juntamente com as obras de Heidegger, as obras de Merleau-Ponty são utilizadas com frequência por aqueles que se reconhecem como representantes de uma arquitetura de inspiração fenomenológica. Neste artigo será analisado o papel que o pensamento de Merleau-Ponty desenrola nas obras e no pensamento de Juhani Pallasmaa e Steven (...) Holl, autores que se destacam pela força de seus trabalhos e pela determinação de suas posições teóricas. Particular atenção se prestará à dupla oposição que caracteriza a arquitetura fenomenológica, que se distancia com igual firmeza tanto do modernismo como do pós-modernismo. Estes autores, na reivindicação da primazia do corpo vivido e da experiência perceptiva, consideram ter encontrado um “antídoto” à ossificação produzida pela racionalidade moderna, com seus espaços funcionais e inabitáveis, como também à celebração da autorreferencialidade de um certo pós-modernismo, com seus edifícios destinados essencialmente a serem contemplados pelos apreciadores. A partir dessa dupla oposição, a arquitetura fenomenológica parece procurar um plano mais sólido numa forte acentuação da positividade da experiência corpórea e perceptiva, quando Merleau-Ponty parece empenhado, pelo contrário, em uma progressiva revisão destes aspetos. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex has been mistakenly interpreted as a theory of gender, because interpreters have failed adequately to understand Beauvoir's aims. Beauvoir is not trying to explain facts, events, or states of affairs, but to reveal, unveil, or uncover (découvrir) meanings. She explicates the meanings of woman, female, and feminine. Instead of a theory, Beauvoir's book presents a phenomenological description of the sexual difference.

Ao longo de décadas, a filósofa brasileira Marilena Chaui produziu uma das mais vigorosas e importantes interpretações da filosofia espinosana. Nossa intenção é propor uma introdução a essa leitura. Queremos mostrar como, ao mesmo tempo em que seus passos iniciais vinham na esteira da redescoberta francesa de Espinosa nos anos 60, essa interpretação, segundo relato da própria autora, foi elaborada nos anos 70 “sob o signo da crítica da ditadura”, de tal forma que, ali, a história da filosofia fosse praticada (...) como “crítica do instituído”, ou ainda mais precisamente, como esforço compreensivo e crítico do autoritarismo brasileiro. Quais as circunstâncias dessa operação? É o que pretendemos investigar. (shrink)

Este artículo estudia la razón de Zambrano desde sus albores como razón mediadora. Su rechazo del sistema va unido a su comienzo en la intuición y a su decurso temporal, que analizamos en relación con Bergson y Husserl. La razón poética va más allá de ese núcleo intuitivo para revelar re-flexivamente incluso lo invisible. Su inmersión en las profundidades, en la pasividad actuante, en las entrañas, en la multiplicidad de los tiempos es paralela a la fenomenología de la génesis merleau-pontiana, (...) a su poiesis carnal e incluso al telos de una razón ampliada al sentir. Ambos filósofos ejercitan su nueva concepción de la filosofía en la existencia. (shrink)

Trata-se de discutir a maneira com que as representações do corpo no cinema de David Cronenberg indicam uma dissociação importante entre gozo e prazer. Tal dissociação deve ser avaliada em sua dimensão propriamente política, abrindo com isso outra dimensão para aquilo que normalmente entendemos por “crítica do fetichismo”.

In Dynamis. Ontologia dell’incommensurabile, Gaetano Chiurazzi offers an account of the philosophical sense and implications of the discovery of incommensurable magnitudes in ancient thought. In his study, Chiurazzi presents the scope of the idea of incommensurability in contrast to those theories that have interpreted perception as the primary access to reality. Chiurazzi claims that the discovery of incommensurable relations, such as that of “1/square root of 2,” which expresses the relation between the side and the diagonal of a square, introduces (...) the conception of asymmetrical relations into Western epistemology and ontology. This conception finds in the modern idea of transcendental philosophy its mature formulation. In this paper, I draw on Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s proposal of a phenomenology of perception in order to critically evaluate the working assumption in Chiurazzi’s account that perception is the faculty of intuition that seizes upon the individual and therefore as “atomic” in nature. (shrink)

Este trabalho pretende comentar a doutrina que Merleau-Ponty expõe, em seus distintos períodos, sobre o que caracteriza a obra clássica e sua interpretação. Aponta-se como pressupostos dessa doutrina a admissão de uma certa filosofia da linguagem, bem como de uma particular teoria da produtividade. Em função disso, pergunta-se se, efetivamente, foi feita, ali, uma crítica radical da "filosofia da consciência", como usualmente se supõe.  .

El propósito de este trabajo apunta, en primer lugar, a dilucidar en la _Fenomenología de la percepción_, el marco a partir del cual el autor comprende la historia y, en particular, el acontecimiento histórico. Según mi opinión, la descripción de este marco, de fuerte carácter existencialista, nos permitirá, en un segundo momento, avanzar hacia los rasgos específicos del acontecimiento histórico: singularidad, generalidad y contingencia, que ofrecen la clave para comprender en qué medida el acontecimiento es, desde la mirada merleau-pontyana, enigma (...) y huella. Finalmente, una mirada prospectiva de la obra del autor nos permitirá ubicar la posición merleau-pontyana en el contexto de la discusión actual. (shrink)

La noción de sistema de equivalencias adquiere en la fenomenología merleaupon-tyana un lugar central, puesto que allí subyace una función general de transposición tácita. Se trata de un principio de comprensión sin explicación analógica, una síntesis sin análisis, tal como puede observarse, por ejemplo, en la plasticidad, la transferi-bilidad y la analogicidad que caracteriza a los hábitos. Sobre esta base, este artículo seguirá un camino regresivo a fin de desvelar que el sentido de las equivalencias y transposiciones está latente en (...) "las matrices simbólicas", que ofrecen una clave para comprender que los fenómenos de expresión, que tienen lugar en el mundo a través del cuerpo, del lenguaje, de la historia y del arte, deben ser vistos como nudos, emblemas de sentido en los que se hace visible una dimensión temporal. Las matrices simbólicas son "centros organizadores" y, por lo tanto, "centros de significación" que se retoman una y otra vez. The notion of a system of equivalences comes to have in Merleau-Ponty's phe-nomenology a central place because lying under there is a general function of tacit transposition. It is a principle for understanding without analogical explanation, i.e., a synthesis without analysis, as can be seen, for example, in the plasticity, transferability, and likeliness that characterizes habits. On this basis, the article will follow a regres-sive way in order to show that the meaning of the equivalences and transpositions is latent in "the symbolic matrixes" that offer a clue to understand that the phenomena of expression, which occur in the world by means of the body, language, history, and art, should be seen as nodes or emblems of meaning in which a temporal dimension shows itself. Symbolic matrixes are "organizing centers", and thus "centers of signi-ficance" that are taken up over and over again. (shrink)

Resumen El concepto de “quiasmo” es fundamental en la filosofía del “último” Merleau-Ponty. Me interesa retomar este concepto para mostrar que, en la nueva ontología esbozada en Le visible et l’invisible y en las notas de la misma época, su función guarda correspondencia con la tarea que, a lo largo de la historia de la filosofía, ha desempeñado la imaginación. En este sentido, una ontología del quiasmo supone por necesidad pensar una ontología de la imaginación. Además, este concepto permite arrojar (...) una luz nueva sobre el problema de la subjetividad.The concept of “chiasm” is central to the philosophy of the “late” Merleau-Ponty. My aim is to retrieve this concept in order to show that, within the framework of the new ontology outlined in Le visible et l’invisible and the notes written during the same period, its function corresponds to the function that imagination has performed throughout the history of philosophy. Thus, an ontology of chiasm necessarily involves reflecting upon an ontology of imagination. Furthermore, the concept of chiasm enables us to shed new light on the problem of subjectivity. (shrink)

En este artículo nos proponemos analizar, desde una perspectiva lógica y ontológica, la noción de una “cuarta persona de la Trinidad”, tal como aparece en el De fide orthodoxa y De imaginibus de Juan de Damasco. Sostendremos que esta “cuarta persona” pone en cuestión la lógica de la teología trinitaria. En la medida en que es irreductible a lo divino y a lo humano, así como a la materia y al espíritu, la cuarta persona posee una naturaleza extra-ontológica que exige (...) para expresarse, consecuentemente, una cuarta persona extra-gramatical más allá de la sintaxis. (shrink)

This article presents an interview method which enables us to bring a person, who may not even have been trained, to become aware of his or her subjective experience, and describe it with great precision. It is focused on the difficulties of becoming aware of one’s subjective experience and describing it, and on the processes used by this interview technique to overcome each of these difficulties. The article ends with a discussion of the criteria governing the validity of the descriptions (...) obtained, and then with a brief review of the functions of these descriptions. (shrink)

Although better known for his phenomenology of perception and the perceived world, Merleau-Ponty’s writings also contain the outlines of a rich and unique account of the imagination and the imaginary. In this paper, I explicate the phenomenology of the image that Merleau-Ponty develops throughout his work. I show how Merleau-Ponty develops this account of the image in critical response to Sartre and in a way that follows from his own descriptions of what painters do when they paint and of what (...) we experience when we look at their paintings. The investigation of the particular mode of being of images leads to a consideration of the body and Merleau-Ponty’s later ontology. (shrink)

Exame introdutório das condições depossibilidade de recuperação da racionalidade daexperiência sensível posta de lado, desde o inicioda filosofia, por Platão e Aristóteles, e do papelda reflexão dialética na investigação da fé per -ceptiva, conforme M. Merleau-Ponty em Levisible e J'invisibJe.

: Luce Irigaray is often cited as the principle feminist who adheres to phenomenology as a method of descriptive philosophy. A different approach to Irigaray might well open the way to not only an avoidance of phenomenology's sexist tendencies, but the recognition that the breach between Irigaray's ideas and those of phenomenology is complete. I argue that this occurs and that Irigaray's work directly implicates a Bergsonian critique of the limits of phenomenology.

Luce Irigaray is often cited as the principle feminist who adheres to phenomenology as a method of descriptive philosophy. A different approach to Irigaray might well open the way to not only an avoidance of phenomenology's sexist tendencies, but the recognition that the breach between Irigaray's ideas and those of phenomenology is complete. I argue that this occurs and that Irigaray's work directly implicates a Bergsonian critique of the limits of phenomenology.

This article clarifies Merleau-Ponty’s enigmatic, later concept of reversibility by showing how it is connected to the theme of the genesis of sense. The article first traces reversibility through “Eye and Mind” and The Visible and the Invisible , in ways that link reversibility to a theme of the earlier philosophy, namely an interrelation in which activity and passivity reverse to one another. This linkage is deepened through a detailed study of a passage on touch in the Phenomenology ’s chapter (...) on “Sensing,” which shows how reversibility is important to the genesis of sense, not from some already given origin, but through a creative operation within being, beyond the perceiver, wherein the field of perception internally diverges into active and passive moments. The article connects this point about the genesis of sense to themes in Merleau-Ponty’s lectures on institution and passivity. Altogether the article shows how reversibility is a sign of a divergence and thence of a sort of gap or excess in being that allows for a genesis of sense within being itself. (shrink)

Le chiasme de l’être: une exploration de l’ontologie du sens de Merleau-PontyLa question de l’ontologie inclut celle de savoir comment un être se détermine et acquiert son sens, autrement dit comment il instaure sa différenciation par desorientations, des significations et des différences en général. Cette étude explore l’idée que le sens d’un être provient d’une « chiralité ontologique », c’est-à-dire d’un type de différence ontologique présentant un apparentement caractéristique de ses deux côtés droit et gauche. L’étude montre tout d’abord comment (...) l’ontologie merleau-pontienne de la réversibilité conduit à la question de la chiralité. On fait ensuite entrer dans la discussion des résultats obtenus dans les domaines de la chimie, de la biologie et de la géométrie, pour mieux mettre en lumière l’importance des différences en chiralité et pour élaborer une définition de la « chiralité ontologique » en étroite liaison avec l’ontologie du sens.Il chiasma dell’essere: un’esplorazione dell’ontologia del senso merleau-pontianaIl problema dell’ontologia include il problema di come l’essere sia determinato e acquisisca senso, acquisisca cioè gli orientamenti, i significati, tutte quelle differenze che fanno la differenza. Questo saggio esplora il pensiero secondo il quale il senso dell’essere deriva da una ‘chiralità ontologica,’ una sorta di differenza ontologica con caratteristiche affini alle differenze fra le mani destra e sinistra. Il testo illustra in primo luogo come l’ontologia merleau-pontyana della reversibilità porti alle questioni della chiralità. I risultati della ricerca attuale, in chimica, biologia e geometria sono poi discussi per illuminare l’importanza delle differenze chirali e per sviluppare una definizione della chiralità ontologica che si connette ad una ontologia del senso. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty, la passivité et la scienceJe soutiens qu’il y a plus en jeu dans l’intérêt de Merleau-Ponty pour la science qu’une simple dialectique entre disciplines. C’est parce que son évolutionméthodologique le conduit à trouver dans la science un moyen spécifique d’approfondir ses recherches ontologiques, que celle-ci hante de plus en plus sa philosophie. En effet, dans le chapitre « champ phénoménal » de la Phénoménologie de la perception, il est possible de rapprocher certains aspects de son défi méthodologique et l’idée (...) selon laquelle la philosophie tient son origine d’une conscience réflexive, active et autonome dans son ensemble. Je lie cela aux problèmes de la passivité de telle sorte que la science apparaisse comme une façon de saisir la réflexion non pas comme autonome, mais comme une opération du champ phénomenal, comme réflexion radicale. Grâce à l’analyse critique des recherches récentes sur le génome, je montre ensuite commentl’embryologie peut nous aider à conceptualiser la vie comme un champ phénoménal, c’est-à-dire comme un champ qui engendre ce même genre d’opérations qui caractérisent aussi la phénoménalité. Cela nous conduit à voir la phénomenologie non plus comme une réflexion de survol sur les phénomènes, mais plutôt comme une réflexion radicale qui se realise à travers un phénoménalité plus « ancienne », qui appartient à la vie ellemême. Cela ouvre également des perspectives sur quelques problèmes difficiles de la dernière philosophie de Merleau-Ponty; ceux-ci sont abordés d’une manière nouvelle, grâce au rapprochement de sa première philosophie et de la science actuelle.Merleau-Ponty, la passività e la scienzaRitengo che, nell’interesse che Merleau-Ponty rivolge alla scienza, vi sia in gioco qualcosa di più del semplice confronto dialettico con un’altra disciplina. Il motivo è che il suo impegno metodologico finisce per individuare nella scienza una speciale risorsa per l’indagine di quelle profonde questioni ontologiche che investono in modo crescente la sua filosofia. Intendo argomentare tale ipotesi, connettendo dei passi del capitolo di Fenomenologia della percezione “Il campo fenomenico” con la sua sfida metodologica all’idea che la filosofia abbia inizio da una coscienza riflessiva autonoma e interamente attiva. Collego questo alle questioni della passività in un modo che rivela la scienza come una potenziale risorsa per comprendere la riflessione non come autonoma, bensì in quanto operazione di e nel campo fenomenico – come riflessione radicale. Poi, attraverso un’analisi critica dei risultati recenti riguardanti il DNA regolatore, mostrocome l’attuale embriologia può aiutarci a concettualizzare la vita come un campo fenomenico che implicitamente produce i tipi di operazioni rivelatrici distintive della fenomenalità. Questo ci permette di collocare la fenomenologia non semplicemente come una riflessione dall’alto sui fenomeni, ma come una riflessione radicale che opera grazie ad una “più antica” fenomenalità della vita. Questo ci fornisce degli spunti su alcune difficili questioni nella filosofia dell’ultimo Merleau-Ponty, suggerendo un nuovo percorso che giunga a queste combinando il primo periodo della sua filosofia con la scienza recente. (shrink)

Scholars such as Renaud Barbara and Bernhard Waldenfels and Regula Giuliani have emphasized time’s central role in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, and Michael Kelly has shown how the Phenomenology’s “Temporality” chapter already broaches his later ontological concerns. I deepen our understanding of this temporal–ontological nexus by showing how Merleau-Ponty’s temporal ontology in fact erupts even earlier in the Phenomenology, as an underlying theme that unifies part two, on “The Perceived World,” as leading into the “Temporality” chapter. I do this via a close (...) study of the chapter, “The Thing and the Natural World,” first explicating some profound but easily overlooked points about time implied in Merleau-Ponty’s initial remarks on the constancy of form and size. I then closely analyze his study of color constancy in relation to his central source, David Katz’s The World of Colour, to show how color leads him to conceptualize things as what I call “time-things”—and more generally to conceptualize things, the world, and nature, as being in such a way that temporality is ingredient in their being. This leads to some implications for his temporal ontology. (shrink)

Husserlian variation, Bergsonian intuition and Peircean abduction are contrasted as methodological responses to the traditional philosophical problem of deriving knowledge of universals from singulars. Each method implies a correspondingly different view of the generation of the variations from which knowledge is derived. To make sense of the latter differences, and to distinguish the different sorts of variation sought by philosophers and scientists, a distinction between extensive, intensive, and abductive-intensive variation is introduced. The link between philosophical method and the generation of (...) variation is used to illuminate different philosophical conceptions of nature and nature's relation to meaning and sense. (shrink)