Seeing Oneself in the Mirror: Critical Reflections on the Visual Experience of the Reflected Self

Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 36 (1):21-44 (2005)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Merleau-Ponty, in his well-known essay, "Eye and Mind," startlingly comments: "A Cartesian does not see himself in the mirror; he sees a dummy, an 'outside,' which, he has every reason to believe, other people see in the very same way but which, no more for himself than for others, is not a body in the flesh." This essay opens up a discourse on this very problem: the question of what one sees when looks at oneself in the mirror. As well, the now-common assumption that we have arrived at a postmodern condition of experience, knowledge, and interpretation comes into question when we consider the possibility that the human sciences have not sufficiently embraced a post-Cartesian perspective on mind, body, self, and vision. The essay closes with a reflection on the contact of the self and the other in vision. The self and the other are not "signs" that are "read" in the context of a perceptual field. Rather, the interpersonal world embodied through the vital flesh of self in communion with other is reflected to the eye only if the observer cares to take note, to imaginatively flesh-out the world embodied in the moment of a thoughtful glance

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 100,809

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Come due specchi prospicienti.Gianluca De Fazio - 2020 - Chiasmi International 22:69-85.
The co-consciousness hypothesis.Frédérique de Vignemont - 2004 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 3 (1):97-114.
The Ontology and Ethics of Embodiment.Patricia M. Yahrmatter - 1998 - Dissertation, Vanderbilt University
Kierkegaard's mirrors: The immediacy of moral vision.Patrick Stokes - 2007 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 50 (1):70 – 94.
A Phenomenology of “The Other World”.Helen A. Fielding - 2007 - Chiasmi International 9:221-234.
A Phenomenology of “The Other World”.Helen A. Fielding - 2007 - Chiasmi International 9:221-234.
The self and self‐reference.P. M. S. Hacker - 1990 - In Wittgenstein, meaning and mind. Cambridge, Mass., USA: Blackwell. pp. 245–265.

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-09-02

Downloads
46 (#478,781)

6 months
17 (#170,916)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

References found in this work

Phenomenology of Perception.Maurice Merleau-Ponty - 1945 - New York: Routledge. Edited by Donald A. Landes.
Phenomenology of Perception.Maurice Merleau-Ponty - 1945/1962 - New York: Routledge. Edited by Donald A. Landes.
The Visible and the Invisible: Followed by Working Notes.Maurice Merleau-Ponty - 1968 - Evanston [Ill.]: Northwestern University Press. Edited by Claude Lefort.
Phenomenology of Perception.Aron Gurwitsch, M. Merleau-Ponty & Colin Smith - 1964 - Philosophical Review 73 (3):417.
The Structure of Behavior.Maurice Merleau-Ponty - 1963 - Boston,: Beacon Press (MA).

View all 21 references / Add more references