Abstract

In my dissertation I present Merleau-Ponty's conception of embodied inter-subjectivity as a fruitful starting point from which to formulate an ethics. While Merleau-Ponty himself never wrote an ethics, my own analysis aims to draw out the ethical dimension already implied in his epistemological, and later ontological understanding of embodied inter-subjectivity. Since Merleau-Ponty rejects the sovereign, individualistic subject of Modernity in favor of a dialogical subject embedded in language and in history, we will not find a systematic ethics. Rather, an ethics elicited from Merleau-Ponty's philosophy will center around the mode of interpersonal relations. I make a case for a kind of ethics that includes a call for a general shift in the way we understand ourselves and live our lives with others, rather than a call for an ahistorical set of maxims. An ethical shift can mean a shift in discursive structures and a shift from a mode of "having" to a mode of "being" , where being is dialogical and the other is not reduced to utility but is a genuine interlocutor in the dialogue. Merleau-Ponty's account of language and history make possible a shift to be incorporated into an altered discursive framework, which in turn becomes incorporated into our daily lives. ;Central to my project, however, is also the articulation of those aspects of embodied subjectivity and of alterity that are problematic to providing a fecund ground for the ethical relation. In my argument I incorporate several feminist criticisms, including those of Judith Butler, Iris Young, and Luce Irigaray. On the one hand, I defend Merleau-Ponty's thought against claims that his philosophy of embodied subjectivity is inherently gender-biased and that his notion of alterity precludes genuine "otherness." On the other hand, I show that a reformulation of certain aspects of his understanding of embodied subjectivity is necessary in order to develop an ethics grounded in a hermeneutical, dialogical relation which remains open to difference. ;I argue that the necessary ingredient that makes possible an ethical responsibility to the other is an ethical recognition, a mode of being with another based on an obligation to maintain a kind of "availability" in which we remain open to calls placed on us by others. Ethical recognition in a Merleau-Pontyan sense is an obligation to keep the communicative process alive, maintaining a goal of genuine reciprocity. The communicative process is our capacity of reflection, expression, and gathering together the separate elements into a whole that does not subsume all the "parts" . Ethical relations hinge on what Merleau-Ponty calls a "presumptive" universality, which involves a continuous communicative process embodied in concrete dialogical practices. If we can speak of a utopia at all, we must recognize that utopia is not a static goal. A Merleau-Pontyan ethics, then, is a process of dialogue which aims at co-creating a common ground in a movement of continuously reworking itself through new perspectives