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Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Merleau-Ponty states the phenomenologist replaces intellectualist and empiricist conceptions of space with a description. Read More: Part 2, Chapter 4: Merleau-Ponty discusses the intertwining of natural and historical time. Nature (world) penetrates to the center of pers. Read More: Part 3, Chapter 1. Merleau‐Ponty is both a critic of perspective and a perspectivist; a critic of science and its interlocutor, requiring that which he opposes. The study of perception is a ground on which all three fields of concern – science, painting and philosophy – come together, the.

1. Merleau-Ponty uses concepts like those of the lived or own body and of lived space in order to emphasize, from a first-person perspective, the co-penetration that exists between subject and world.
2. Despite the largely consistent two-way relation between the world and the body-subject, Merleau-Ponty describes thebody (le corps) also in terms of its being a pre-personal organism, a kind of “anonymous and general existence” in the world (Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception. This organism, different from the Cartesian, 86).

How do we think? How do we arrive at meaning? How do we judge? Alex Scott discusses Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception and we may benefit from knowing something about our own modes of perception, reasoning, and so on for when we encounter beings from other planets.

Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception

by Alex Scott, 2002

https://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/merleauponty.html

In his investigation of the Phenomenology of Perception (1945), Maurice Merleau-Ponty defines phenomenology as the study of essences, including the essence of perception and of consciousness. He also says, however, that phenomenology is a method of describing the nature of our perceptual contact with the world. Phenomenology is concerned with providing a direct description of human experience.

Perception is the background of experience which guides every conscious action. The world is a field for perception, and human consciousness assigns meaning to the world. We cannot separate ourselves from our perceptions of the world.

Merleau-Ponty argues that both traditional Empiricism and Rationalism are inadequate to describe the phenomenology of perception. Empiricism maintains that experience is the primary source of knowledge, and that knowledge is derived from sensory perceptions. Rationalism maintains that reason is the primary source of knowledge, and that knowledge does not depend on sensory perceptions. Merleau-Ponty says that traditional Empiricism does not explain how the nature of consciousness determines our perceptions, while Rationalism does not explain how the nature of our perceptions determines consciousness.

Perception may be structured by associative forces, and may be focused by attention. Attention itself does not create any perceptions, but may be directed toward any aspect of a perceptual field. Attention can enable conscious perceptions to be structured by reflecting upon them.

Merleau-Ponty explains that a judgment may be defined as a perception of a relationship between any objects of perception. A judgment may be a logical interpretation of the signs presented by sensory perceptions. But judgment is neither a purely logical activity, nor a purely sensory activity. Judgments may transcend both reason and experience.

Perception is not purely sensation, nor is it purely interpretation. Consciousness is a process that includes sensing as well as reasoning.

Experience may be reflective or unreflective. Unreflective experience may be known by subsequent reflection. Reflection may be aware of itself as an experience. Reflection may also be a way to understand and to structure experience.

Reflection may be focused successively on different parts of a perceptual field. According to Merleau-Ponty, perceptual objects have an inner horizon in consciousness and an outer horizon in the external world. The object-horizon structure enables the individual to distinguish perceptual objects from each other. All objects reflect each other in time and space.

Psychological and physiological aspects of perception may overlap and influence each other. The spatiality of the human body, or the ‘body image,’ is an example of how both psychological and physiological factors may influence perception.

Perception is a system of meanings by which a phenomenal object is recognized. The intentions of the person who is perceiving an object are reflected in the field to which the phenomenal object belongs. Merleau-Ponty argues that consciousness is not merely a representative function or a power of signification. Consciousness is a projective activity, which develops sensory data beyond their own specific significance and uses them for the expression of spontaneous action.

According to Merleau-Ponty, the human body is an expressive space which contributes to the significance of personal actions. The body is also the origin of expressive movement, and is a medium for perception of the world. Bodily experience gives perception a meaning beyond that established simply by thought. Thus, Descartes’ cogito (“I think, therefore I am”) does not account for how consciousness is influenced by the spatiality of a person’s own body.

Merleau-Ponty also argues that existence and substance presuppose each other. Substance expresses existence, and existence realizes itself through substance. However, substance is not merely a form of signification or expression of existence, and existence is not merely what is expressed as substance. Existence and substance explain each other.

Merleau-Ponty says that thought precedes speech, in that speech is a way of expressing thought. Thoughts which cannot be expressed are temporarily unconscious. Thoughts which can be expressed can become conscious. Whether or not thoughts can become conscious may depend on whether or not they can be expressed. But we can become conscious of thoughts even if they have not previously been expressed.

Speech can express the thoughts of the person who is speaking, and the listener can receive thoughts from the sounds of spoken words. Thoughts may exist through speech, and speech may be the external existence of thought. But speech is not merely the expression of thought, because speech may have a power of signification of its own.

Existence is a condition that includes the existence of conscious beings and of nonconscious things. Bodily experience is an ambiguous mode of existence, because the idea of the body cannot be separated from the experience of the body, and because mind and body cannot be separated as subject and object. The mind and body each have their own being, and the perceptions of the body influence what is perceived by the mind.

Every sensation belongs to a sensory field. The concept of a sensory field implies that all senses are spatial, and that all sensory objects must occupy space. Every object which is perceived belongs to a field of other objects which are not perceived. Every perceived sensation belongs to a field of other sensations which are not simultaneously perceived by the subject.

Space may be defined as a form of external experience, rather than as a physical setting in which external objects are arranged. The relationships between objects in space are revealed by the experience of the perceiving subject. A perceptual field is a field in which perceptions are present in time and space. Space is modified and restructured by time.

Memory is a capacity to recall or recognize the past, and may be influenced by changes in perceptions. Perceptions may be true or false. An illusion may be a false perception, or a perception of something in an unreal way. A hallucination may be a perception for which there is no causative stimulus in the external world.

Merleau Ponty Signs

Merleau-Ponty argues that consciousness is transparent in that it is not concealed from itself. The unconscious may be concealed from the conscious, but the conscious can be revealed to itself. Both appearance and reality are phenomena of consciousness. Appearances may be true or false, and may or may not be the same as reality. The false appearance of a perceptual object may conceal its true reality. However, the actual appearance of a perceptual object may also manifest the object’s true reality. Thus, phenomenology is concerned both with appearance as a perceptual phenomenon, and with reality as a perceptual phenomenon.

Merleau-Ponty concludes by defining freedom as a mode of consciousness in which personal actions and commitments can be chosen within a situation or field of possibility. Freedom is always within a given field of possibility. Freedom is always present in a situation, unless we lose our belonging to the situation. Freedom is a mode of being-in-the-world which enables us to transcend ourselves.

Copywright© 2002 Alex Scott

Phenomenology of Perception (French: Phénoménologie de la perception) is a 1945 book about perception by the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, in which the author expounds his thesis of 'the primacy of perception'. The work established Merleau-Ponty as the pre-eminent philosopher of the body, and is considered a major statement of French existentialism.

Summary[edit]

Merleau-Ponty attempts to define phenomenology, which according to him has not yet received a proper definition. He asserts that phenomenology contains a series of apparent contradictions, which include the fact that it attempts to create a philosophy that would be a rigorous science while also offering an account of space, time and the world as people experience them. Merleau-Ponty denies that such contradictions can be resolved by distinguishing between the views of the philosopher Edmund Husserl and those of the philosopher Martin Heidegger, commenting that Heidegger's Being and Time (1927) 'springs from an indication given by Husserl and amounts to no more than an explicit account of the 'natürlicher Weltbegriff' or the 'Lebenswelt' which Husserl, toward the end of his life, identified as the central theme of phenomenology, with the result that the contradiction appears in Husserl's own philosophy'.^[1]

Following Husserl, Merleau-Ponty attempts to reveal the phenomenological structure of perception. He writes that while the 'notion of sensation ... seems immediate and obvious', it is in fact confused. Merleau-Ponty asserts that because 'traditional analyses' have accepted it, they have 'missed the phenomenon of perception.' Merleau-Ponty argues that while sensation could be understood to mean 'the way in which I am affected and the experiencing of a state of myself', there is nothing in experience corresponding to 'pure sensation' or 'an atom of feeling'. He writes that, 'The alleged self-evidence of sensation is not based on any testimony of consciousness, but on widely held prejudice.'^[2] Merleau-Ponty's central thesis is that of the 'primacy of perception.' He critiques the Cartesian stance of 'cogito ergo sum' and expounds a different conception of consciousness. Cartesian dualism of mind and body is called into question as the primary way of existing in the world, and is ultimately rejected in favor of an intersubjective conception or dialectical and intentional concept of consciousness. The body is central to Merleau-Ponty's account of perception. In his view, the ability to reflect comes from a pre-reflective ground that serves as the foundation for reflecting on actions.

Merleau-Ponty's account of the body helps him undermine what had been a long-standing conception of consciousness, which hinges on the distinction between the for-itself (subject) and in-itself (object), which plays a central role in the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, whose Being and Nothingness was released in 1943. The body stands between this fundamental distinction between subject and object, ambiguously existing as both. In Merleau-Ponty's discussion of human sexuality, he discusses psychoanalysis. Merleau-Ponty suggests that the body 'can symbolize existence because it brings it into being and actualizes it.'^[3]

Publication history[edit]

Phenomenology of Perception was first published in 1945 by Éditions Gallimard. In 1962, an English translation by Colin Smith was published by Routledge & Kegan Paul. In 2013, Routledge published an English translation by Donald Landes.^[4][5]

Reception[edit]

The philosopher A. J. Ayer criticized Merleau-Ponty's arguments against the sense datum theory of perception, finding them inconclusive. He considered Merleau-Ponty's inclusion of a chapter on sexuality surprising, suggesting that Merleau-Ponty included it to give him an opportunity to revisit the Hegelian dialectic of the master and the slave. He compared Merleau-Ponty's views on sex to those of Sartre in Being and Nothingness.^[6] The sociologist Murray S. Davis observed that Merleau-Ponty's view that aspects of psychoanalysis, such as its attribution of meaning to all human actions and the diffusing of sexuality throughout the whole of human existence, are similar to phenomenology is controversial, and that other authors would view psychoanalysis as 'materialistic and mechanical'.^[7]

Helmut R. Wagner described Phenomenology of Perception as an important contribution to phenomenology.^[8] Rhiannon Goldthorpe called the book Merleau-Ponty's major work, noting that its discussion of subjects such as the relationship of the body to spatial experience, and sexuality, went beyond 'the nominal range of his title.'^[9] The philosopher David Abram observed that while 'the sensible thing' is 'commonly considered by our philosophical tradition to be passive and inert', Merleau-Ponty consistently describes it in the active voice in Phenomenology of Perception. He rejected the idea that Merleau-Ponty's 'animistic' language was the result of poetic license, arguing that he 'writes of the perceived things as entities, of sensible qualities as powers, and of the sensible itself as a field of animate presences, in order to acknowledge and underscore their active, dynamic contribution to perceptual experience.'^[10]

American vice president Al Gore, in a 1999 interview with the critic Louis Menand in The New Yorker, mentioned Phenomenology of Perception as an inspiration.^[11] The philosopher Stephen Priest commented that, following the book's publication, Merleau-Ponty decided that in it he had taken 'subject-object dualism as phenomenologically primitive' and 'made use of a comparatively superficial psychologistic vocabulary' that he wished to replace.^[12] The philosopher Robert Bernasconi observed that the book established Merleau-Ponty as the pre-eminent philosopher of the body, and along with Merleau-Ponty's other writings, found a more receptive audience among analytic philosophers than the works of other phenomenologists.^[13]

G. B. Madison observed that the book was recognized as a major statement of French existentialism, and is best known for Merleau-Ponty's central thesis of 'the primacy of perception'. According to Madison, Merleau-Ponty sought to respond in his later work to the charge that by grounding all intellectual and cultural acquisitions in the prereflective and prepersonal life of the body, he was promoting reductionism and anti-intellectualism and undermining the ideals of reason and truth. Madison further stated that some commentators believed that Merleau-Ponty's thought had taken a significantly different direction in his late, unfinished work The Visible and the Invisible, edited by the philosopher Claude Lefort, while others emphasized the continuity of his work, with the issue receiving 'much scholarly discussion'.^[14]

References[edit]

1. ^Merleau-Ponty 1978, p. vii.
2. ^Merleau-Ponty 1978, pp. 4–5.
3. ^Merleau-Ponty 1978, pp. 158, 408.
4. ^Merleau-Ponty 1978, pp. iii–iv.
5. ^Merleau-Ponty 2014, p. i.
6. ^Ayer 1984, pp. 216–217, 222.
7. ^Davis 1985, pp. 247–248.
8. ^Wagner 1983, p. 219.
9. ^Goldthorpe 1995, p. 522.
10. ^Abram 1996, pp. 54–56.
11. ^Renshon 2002, pp. 197–198.
12. ^Priest 2003, p. 9.
13. ^Bernasconi 2005, p. 588.
14. ^Madison 2017, pp. 656–658.

Bibliography[edit]

Books

Merleau Ponty Art

• Abram, David (1996). The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World. New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN0-679-43819-X.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Ayer, A. J. (1984). Philosophy in the Twentieth Century. London: Unwin Paperbacks. ISBN0-04-100044-7.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Bernasconi, Robert (2005). 'Merleau-Ponty, Maurice'. In Honderich, Ted (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-926479-1.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Davis, Murray S. (1985). Smut: Erotic Reality/Obscene Ideology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN0-226-13792-9.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Goldthorpe, Rhiannon (1995). 'Merleau-Ponty'. In France, Peter (ed.). The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-866125-8.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Madison, G. B. (2017). 'Merleau-Ponty, Maurice'. In Audi, Robert (ed.). The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Third Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-1-107-64379-6.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1978). Phenomenology of Perception. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. ISBN0-7100-3613-2.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (2014). Phenomenology of Perception. Milton Park: Routledge. ISBN978-0415834339.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Priest, Stephen (2003). Merleau-Ponty. London: Routledge. ISBN0-415-30864-X.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Renshon, Stanley A. (2002). America's Second Civil War: Dispatches from the Political Center. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. ISBN978-0765800879.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Scruton, Roger (1994). Sexual Desire: A Philosophical Investigation. London: Phoenix Books. ISBN1-85799-100-1.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Wagner, Helmut R. (1983). Phenomenology of Consciousness and Sociology of the Life-world: An Introductory Study. Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press. ISBN0-88864-032-3.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

External links[edit]

• Excerpts can be found at Google Books: Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (14 March 2002). Phenomenology of Perception. ISBN9780203994610.