Abstract

In this paper I discuss the epistemological implications of the notion of nature and of natural experience for the phenomenological approach worked out by Merleau- Ponty before and after the Phenomenology of Perception. Nature plays a decisive role in Merleau-Ponty’s approach to phenomenology and to philosophy as a whole. The subject is “in” nature and its attachments to nature are to be shown through a discussion of all those scientific approaches that can offer a clue in this respect. But at the same time subjectivity is the place where these very attachments come to their truth. How to think about this mutual implication without either resorting to idealism or falling back into a pre-phenomenological realism? Is it possible to simply speak about nature without at the same time taking into consideration that particular natural being which is the incarnated subject? But if the subject is taken into consideration, what are the consequences for the ontological approach to nature? A close discussion of the lectures on Nature provides a fundamental clue in order to disentangle the riddle of the “flesh” as mutual intertwining of subjectivity and world.