Maurice Merleau-Ponty claims that we as body-subjects have an immediate sensational understanding of the world. A body that perceives and experience the world before any thought and word can render it. The words we use describing sensations are interpretations of sense-experiences, and will never render the total bodily understanding of the world. This article gives a brief insight of what an understanding of Merleau-Ponty’s body-subject implies for the researcher in body-phenomenological studies of toddlers.

Merleau-Ponty was a pivotal figure in twentieth century French philosophy. He was responsible for bringing the phenomenological methods of the German philosophers, Husserl and Heidegger, to France and instigated a new wave of interest in this approach. His influence extended well beyond the boundaries of philosophy and can be seen in theories of politics, art and language. This is the first volume to bring together a comprehensive selection of Merleau-Ponty's writing and presents a cross-section of his work which (...) shows the historical progression of his ideas and influence. (shrink)

First published in 1945, Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s monumental _Phénoménologie de la perception _signalled the arrival of a major new philosophical and intellectual voice in post-war Europe. Breaking with the prevailing picture of existentialism and phenomenology at the time, it has become one of the landmark works of twentieth-century thought. This new translation, the first for over fifty years, makes this classic work of philosophy available to a new generation of readers. _Phenomenology of Perception _stands in the great phenomenological tradition (...) of Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre. Yet Merleau-Ponty’s contribution is decisive, as he brings this tradition and other philosophical predecessors, particularly Descartes and Kant, to confront a neglected dimension of our experience: the lived body and the phenomenal world. Charting a bold course between the reductionism of science on the one hand and "intellectualism" on the other, Merleau-Ponty argues that we should regard the body not as a mere biological or physical unit, but as the body which structures one’s situation and experience within the world. Merleau-Ponty enriches his classic work with engaging studies of famous cases in the history of psychology and neurology as well as phenomena that continue to draw our attention, such as phantom limb syndrome, synaesthesia, and hallucination. This new translation includes many helpful features such as the reintroduction of Merleau-Ponty’s discursive Table of Contents as subtitles into the body of the text, a comprehensive Translator’s Introduction to its main themes, essential notes explaining key terms of translation, an extensive Index, and an important updating of Merleau-Ponty’s references to now available English translations. Also included is a new foreword by Taylor Carman and an introduction to Merleau-Ponty_ _by Claude Lefort. Translated by Donald A. Landes. (shrink)

Challenging and rewarding in equal measure, _Phenomenology of Perception_ is Merleau-Ponty's most famous work. Impressive in both scope and imagination, it uses the example of perception to return the _body_ to the forefront of philosophy for the first time since Plato. Drawing on case studies such as brain-damaged patients from the First World War, Merleau-Ponty brilliantly shows how the body plays a crucial role not only in perception but in speech, sexuality and our relation to others. Perhaps above (...) all, Merleau-Ponty's insights about the embodied mind are a bold and refreshing challenge to the new era of virtual reality and artificial intelligence, as scientists and psychologists discover the centrality of the body to mind and intelligence. (shrink)

Challenging and rewarding in equal measure, _Phenomenology of Perception_ is Merleau-Ponty's most famous work. Impressive in both scope and imagination, it uses the example of perception to return the body to the forefront of philosophy for the first time since Plato. Drawing on case studies such as brain-damaged patients from the First World War, Merleau-Ponty brilliantly shows how the body plays a crucial role not only in perception but in speech, sexuality and our relation to others.

This book contains the unfinished manuscript and working notes of the book Merleau-Ponty was writing when he died.

The work which this author planned to call The Prose of the World, or Introduction to the Prose of the World, is unfinished.

Describes the changing sounds of the rain, the slow soft sprinkle, the drip-drop tinkle, the sounding pounding roaring rain, and the fresh wet silent after-time of rain.

Written between 1945 and 1947, the essays in Sense and Non-Sense provide an excellent introduction to Merleau-Ponty's thought.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty is one of the few major phenomenologists to engage extensively with empirical research in the sciences, and the only one to examine child psychology with rigor and in such depth.

Signes, pour Maurice Merleau-Ponty, n'était pas un alphabet complet, mais plutôt ces signaux soudains comme un regard que nous recevons des événements, des livres et des choses. Ou qu'il nous semble recevoir d'eux : il faut croire que nous y mettons du nôtre, puisqu'il y a des constantes dans ces messages. En philosophie, l'idée d'une vision, d'une parole opérante, d'une opération métaphysique de la chair, d'un échange où le visible et l'invisible sont rigoureusement simultanés. En politique, le sentiment (...) que les mécanismes d'étouffement, de paralysie ou de terreur ne sont pas irréversibles. Si l'auteur a bien lu, ces signes, donc, ne seraient pas de si mauvais augure. En sorte que Signes, loin d'être une traversée des apparences, devient pour le lecteur d'aujourd'hui une traversée de l'œuvre même, dans ses grandes interrogations, de Merleau-Ponty. (shrink)

Edition de 150 pages manuscrites laissées par Merleau-Ponty à sa mort et devant constituer les premiers chapitres d'un grand ouvrage intitulé "Le visible et l'invisible". Elles devaient introduire à un nouveau départ pour la pensée philosophique, les concepts fondamentaux de la philosophie moderne étant considérés comme des postulats résultant eux-mêmes déjà d'une interprétation singulière du monde. Le dernier tiers du volume rassemble des notes de travail, éparses, rédigées en vue de l'oeuvre, et qui peuvent en éclairer le sens. Une (...) substantielle postface de Claude Lefort cherche à dégager le sens qu'aurait eu "Le visible et l'invisible" dans le parcours, interrompu. (shrink)

Selected essays of Maurice Merleau-Ponty published from 1947 to 1961.

This chapter contains section titled: “The Spatiality of One's Own Body and Motility”.

INTRODUCTION HOW DIFFERENT — HOW DOWNRIGHT INCONGRUOUS — the philosophical essays and the ad hoc, primarily political observations which make up this volume ...

Collected in this text are the written notes of courses on the concept of nature give by Merleau-Ponty at the College de France in the 1950s. The ideas that animated the philosopher's lectures emerge in an early, fluid form in the process of being elaborated, negotiated, critiqued and reconsidered.

Dans cet ouvrage publié en 1942, complété en 1945 par la Phénoménologie de la perception, « s’affirme pour la première fois une philosophie existentielle où le mode d’être ultime du pour-soi ne s’avère pas être, en dépit des intentions et des descriptions contraires, celui d’une conscience-témoin » (A. de Waelhens, préface). La structure du comportement se place au niveau de l’expérience non pas naturelle mais scientifique et s’efforce de prouver que cette expérience, c’est-à-dire l’ensemble des faits qui constituent le comportement, (...) n’est pas compréhensible dans les perspectives ontologiques que la science adopte spontanément. (shrink)

Dans une lettre, Merleau-Ponty décrit ainsi l'intention qu'il a développée dans cet ouvrage, écrit pour l'essentiel en 1952 et resté depuis en chantier : «Toute grande prose est aussi une recréation de l'instrument signifiant, désormais manié selon une syntaxe neuve. Le prosaïque se borne à toucher par des signes convenus des significations déjà installées dans la culture. La grande prose est l'art de capter un sens qui n'avait jamais été objectivé jusque-là et de le rendre accessible à tous ceux (...) qui parlent la même langue. Un écrivain se survit lorsqu'il n'est plus capable de fonder ainsi une universalité nouvelle, et de communiquer dans le risque.»Le philosophe nous livre ici ses réflexions sur le langage en général, mais aussi une théorie de l'expression qui l'engage autant vers les thèmes du dialogue et du rapport à autrui, vers la problématique anthropologique de la communication, que vers l'expressivité dans l'art et dans ses premières manifestations chez l'enfant. (shrink)

"The world of perception, that is to say that which is revealed to us by our senses and by the use of life, seems at first sight the best known to us, since there is no need for instruments or calculations to access it, and it suffices, apparently, to open our eyes and let ourselves live to enter it. Yet this is only a false appearance. I would like to show in these talks that it is largely ignored by us (...) as long as we remain in the practical or utilitarian attitude, that it has taken a great deal of time, effort and culture to bring it to fruition, naked, and that it is one of the merits of modern art and thought (by that I mean art and thought for 50 or 70 years) to make us rediscover this world where we live but which we are always tempted to forget. ” Maurice Merleau-Ponty. (shrink)

Les textes presentes dans cet ouvrage sont extraits de tous les ouvrages publies par Maurice MERLEAU-PONTY.