Abstract

The gulf separating Anglo-American and continental philosophers is due in large part to the different problems with which they are concerned. Where their interests cross, the differences in approach make mutual appreciation difficult. A pleasant exception to this is Consciousness and the Acquisition of Language. The book is an edition of lectures transcribed by students and then approved for publication by Merleau-Ponty; for this reason, it lacks the developed, consequential form of a finished work. First delivered in 1949-50, the lectures are programmatic and introductory to his subsequent essays on language, most of which fall within the period 1949-59; yet, and more importantly, they are able to stand on their own right and present from the viewpoint of another tradition results nonetheless germane to the Anglo-American discussion of language.