The Philosophy Of Merleau Ponty

A clear and comprehensive introduction to the thought of French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty

In our time, Ted Toadvine observes, the philosophical question of nature is almost entirely forgotten—obscured in part by a myopic focus on solving "environmental problems" without asking how these problems are framed. But an "environmental crisis," existing as it does in the human world of value and significance, is at heart a philosophical crisis. In this book, Toadvine demonstrates how Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology has a special power to address such a crisis—a philosophical power far better suited to the questions than other modern approaches, with their over-reliance on assumptions drawn from the natural sciences. The book examines key moments in the development of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of nature while roughly following the historical sequence of his major works. Toadvine begins by setting out an ontology of nature proposed in Merleau-Ponty’s first book, The Structure of Behavior. He takes up the theme of the expressive role of reflection in Phenomenology of Perception, as it negotiates the area between nature’s own "self-unfolding" and human subjectivity. Merleau-Ponty’s notion of "intertwining" and his account of space provide a transition to Toadvine’s study of the philosopher’s later work—in which the concept of "chiasm," the crossing or intertwining of sense and the sensible, forms the key to Merleau-Ponty’s mature ontology—and ultimately to the relationship between humans and nature.

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French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) shifted the terrain of western philosophy when he identified the body, rather than consciousness, as the primary site of our meaningful engagement with the world. His magnum opus, The Phenomenology of Perception (1945), revolutionized work in philosophy, psychology, cognitive science and other fields. Perception and Its Development in Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology brings together essays from fifteen leading Merleau-Ponty scholars to demonstrate the continuing significance of Merleau-Ponty’s analysis. Mirroring the progression found in Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception, the essays in this volume engage in original phenomenological research to demonstrate the dynamic development of perceptual life from perception's most foundational forms (spatiality, temporality, intentionality, etc.) to its richest articulations in political life and artistic activity. This comprehensive volume is a powerful resource for students and scholars alike studying Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy and serves both as a commentary upon and companion to his The Phenomenology of Perception.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty is widely recognized as one of the major figures of twentieth-century philosophy. The recent publication of his lecture courses and posthumous working notes has opened new avenues for both the interpretation of his thought and philosophy in general. These works confirm that, with a surprising premonition, Merleau-Ponty addressed many of the issues that concern philosophy today. With the benefit of this fuller picture of his thought, Merleau-Ponty and Contemporary Philosophy undertakes an assessment of the philosopher's relevance for contemporary thinking. Covering a diverse range of topics, including ontology, epistemology, anthropology, embodiment, animality, politics, language, aesthetics, and art, the editors gather representative voices from North America and Europe, including both Merleau-Ponty specialists and thinkers who have come to the philosopher's work through their own thematic interest.

Merleau-Ponty says in his Institution and Passivity lectures that he wants to "consider criticism itself as a symbolic form" instead of doing "a philosophy of symbolic form." This invites the possibility of an unconventional thought: If critical philosophy is a symbolic form, it cannot disclose its own limits and is, in fact, uncritical. Furthermore, the symbolic form can never itself be thought according to the terms of the criticism it produces but is always only constellated and matrixed within them—a symbolic form within both reflection and what it reflects on, within consciousness and the world. Thus, as Rajiv Kaushik argues, the symbolic form is another name for what Merleau-Ponty calls ontological divergence. Only now divergence introduces the question of a limit to both the subject and philosophy itself. This is nothing less than a psychoanalysis of philosophy. Kaushik's analyses of the matrices between space—imagination, light—dark, awake—asleep, and repression—expression reveal this symbolism in its form of divergence, its lack of origin and destination. Kaushik also argues that the phenomenology of symbolism must detour from the purely descriptive method. Drawing from Merleau-Ponty's recently published course materials, and attentive to his reliance on literature and literary language, Merleau-Ponty between Philosophy and Symbolism continues the living force of Merleau-Ponty's thought and develops his radical insight of the primacy of the symbolic form, even in an ontology that claims to be about the sensible and its elements.

Philosophers and artists consider the relevance of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy for understanding art and aesthetic experience. This collection of essays brings together diverse but interrelated perspectives on art and perception based on the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Although Merleau-Ponty focused almost exclusively on painting in his writings on aesthetics, this collection also considers poetry, literary works, theater, and relationships between art and science. In addition to philosophers, the contributors include a painter, a photographer, a musicologist, and an architect. This widened scope offers important philosophical benefits, testing and providing evidence for the empirical applicability of Merleau-Ponty’s aesthetic writings. The central argument is that for Merleau-Ponty the account of perception is also an account of art and vice versa. In the philosopher’s writings, art and perception thus intertwine necessarily rather than contingently such that they can only be distinguished by abstraction. As a result, his account of perception and his account of art are organic, interdependent, and dynamic. The contributors examine various aspects of this intertwining across different artistic media, each ingeniously revealing an original perspective on this intertwining.

Connects the work of Merleau-Ponty to environmental studies. This richly diverse collection looks at the contemporary relevance of the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty to environmental issues and builds a coherent philosophical ecology based on his thought. The contributors describe and analyze relations within the natural world by focusing on the centrality of relations in Merleau-Ponty’s work; his concept of the bond between humanity and nature; and his novel philosophies of perception, embodiment, and “wild” Being. Eco-phenomenologies of living places such as Central Park in New York City, Midwestern farmlands, and communal household dwellings of Pacific Northwest Coast people are closely examined. The contributors also explore Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy for environmental ethics and develop notions such as vital values, somatic empathy, and interspecies sociality. Suzanne L. Cataldi is Professor of Philosophy at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and the author of Emotion, Depth, and Flesh: A Study of Sensitive Space: Reflections on Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy of Embodiment, also published by SUNY Press. William S. Hamrick is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and the author of the SUNY Press book Kindness and the Good Society: Connections of the Heart, winner of the 2004 Edward Goodwin Ballard Book Prize in Phenomenology.