Abstract

This paper aims at exploring the field of relations between Merleau-Ponty and Marx. Re-reading the unpublished texts from the 1940s and 1950s, the intention is to demonstrate that Merleau-Ponty uses The Economic and Philosophic Manuscript of 1844 not only in a political way, but also in a philosophical way. In an original interpretive approach concerning the question of Nature, the paper seeks to demonstrate that this conception suggests that Marx takes on a new place in the development leading from a phenomenology of perception to an ontology of Nature, particularly in the lectures at the College de France in 1956. At the end of this paper, the emphasis is placed on Merleau-Ponty’s attempt to build a new philosophy of action and History, based upon this analysis of Nature.