Abstract

This paper argues that Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological ontology may serve as an important and exigent critique of the dominant understandings of nature and living being that circulate today. Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of nature involves a return to perceptual experience – a return that amounts to a restoration of the inexhaustible depth of the world, and offers a non-subjectivist account of embodied participation or relationality. This emphasis on participation can lead to an increased attentiveness to difference. The paper begins with a discussion of Merleau-Ponty's critique of Cartesian ontology and the idea of depth, as outlined in his last published text 'Eye and Mind.' The idea of depth is then related to Merleau-Ponty's engagement with the work of Jakob von Uëxkull, as outlined in the Nature lectures in 1956-60. Finally, the paper links these discussions to Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of the body and his phenomenological ontology.