Philosophie et sciences: voila un theme difficile, central, de notre temps, ou il est necessairement question de son sens. C'est ce sens qu'interrogent, d'une facon a la fois historique et problematique, les essais du present volume. J. Merleau-Ponty questionne les rapports entre sciences et vulgarisation scientifique. J. Ladriere pose le probleme de La normativite de la pensee scientifique. J. Lambert met en evidence le probleme du Livre de la Nature chez Galilee et Kepler. P. Kerszberg confronte les structures internes de (...) la philosophie critique kantienne et de la theorie de la relativite sur la question cosmologique. M. Richir analyse L'illusion transcendantale dans la theorie cantorienne des ensembles. B. d'Espagnat et G. Hottois evoquent le problemes des rapports difficiles, aujourd'hui, entre science et philosophie. (shrink)

Nursing as a profession has a social mandate to contribute to the good of society through knowledge-based practice. Knowledge is built upon theories, and theories, together with their philosophical bases and disciplinary goals, are the guiding frameworks for practice. This article explores a philosophical perspective of nursing's social mandate, the disciplinary goals for the good of the individual and society, and one approach for translating knowledge into practice through the use of a middle-range theory. It is anticipated that the integration (...) of the philosophical perspective and model into nursing practice will strengthen the philosophy, disciplinary goal, theory, and practice links and expand knowledge within the discipline. With the focus on humanization, we propose that nursing knowledge for social good will embrace a synthesis of the individual and the common good. This approach converges vital and agency needs described by Hamilton and the primacy of maintaining the heritage of the good within the human species as outlined by Maritain. Further, by embedding knowledge development in a changing social and health care context, nursing focuses on the goals of clinical reasoning and action. McCubbin and Patterson's Double ABCX Model of Family Adaptation was used as an example of a theory that can guide practice at the community and global level. Using the theory-practice link as a foundation, the Double ABCX model provides practising nurses with one approach to meet the needs of individuals and society. The integration of theory into nursing practice provides a guide to achieve nursing's disciplinary goals of promoting health and preventing illness across the globe. When nursing goals are directed at the synthesis of the good of the individual and society, nursing's social and moral mandate may be achieved. (shrink)

En este trabajo pretendemos comparar y contrastar las concepciones explícitas e implícitas de la historicidad de Merleau-Ponty y Arendt. Comenzaremos trazando su filiación fenomenológica, que tiene como hilo conductor su común búsqueda del sentido de la experiencia incluso en el sinsentido, abriéndose a él desde sus situaciones y compromisos, adentrándose con el pensamiento en la fragilidad y en la contingencia que jamás excluyeron del filosofar. Mostraremos que el desarrollo merleau-pontiano de la fenomenología genética, particularmente su interpretación del concepto husserliano de (...) la Stiftung, posibilita una concepción de la historia que podría ser aceptada por Arendt, de la misma manera que lo fue su ontología indirecta y su interrogación filosófica. Aunque su resistencia a la reversibilidad de la chair limitará la concepción arendtiana de la acción y del pensar, la interrelación de ambos pensamientos revelará la necesidad de una nueva filosofía de la historia. (shrink)

La tesis de este trabajo es que la primacía merleau-pontiana de la percepción es compatible con la importancia de la imaginación y la de otras dimensiones de la existencia encarnada. A pesar de las diferencias entre ellas, proceden de la misma fuente: el cuerpo vivido y de su intencionalidad operante. Analizaremos sus implicaciones en la concepción merleau-pontiana de la carne, para aplicar la fenomenología de la imaginación, presente en Merleau-Ponty, a la comprensión del giro icónico contemporáneo.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:REDISCOVERING VIRTUE* SERVAIS PINCK.AERS, 0.P. L!universite de Fribourg Fribourg, Switzerland INTRODUCTION: THE DEBATE ABOUT VIRTUE VIRTUE is back. Especially in the United States, a widespread discussion about its role in moral theology has been initiated, a discussion modeled on Aristotle's Ethics, particularly as Aristotle's thought was developed in the Middle Ages by Thomas Aquinas. Accompanying this rediscovery of virtue is a criticism of modern ethical theories. These theories, having (...) broken with Aristotelian tradition, have led to a burgeoning of contradictory systems: a morality of obligation on the Kantian model; utilitarian morality; and a radical critique of morality by Nietzsche. Because of such divergences any discussion between moralists, especially where the foundations and principles of morality are involved, has up to the present seemed doomed to failure.1 •Translated by Sr. Mary Thomas Noble, O.P. 1 The author who has contributed most to this discussion of virtue is undoubtedly Alasdair Macintyre in his three principal books: After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981; second edition, 1984); Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame, 1988); Three Versions of Moral Inquiry: Encyclopedia, Genealogy, and 1radition (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame, 1990). The Italian edition of the last book, Enciclopedia, Genealogia e 1radizione (Milan, 1993), includes a special introduction on Macintyre and a biography. I should also like to mention the article by Martha Nussbaum, "Virtue Revived," Times Literary Supplement 4657 Ouly 3, 1992): 9-11. See also a recent book by Andre Comte-Sponville, Petit traite des grands vertus (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1995). This work is very interesting because it proposes to a wide readership a moral system drawn from Aristotle that is at the same time based entirely on modern philosophy. In my opinion the author unintentionally confirms the thesis of the incompatibility of modern ethical systems of obligation and the 361 362 SERVAIS PINCKAERS, O.P. In view of this ethical pluralism, certain philosophers have undertaken to set up ethical norms through reflection on justice, using the methods of discussion and decision prevalent in our democratic societies. The initiative has been designated as procedural ethics.2 In this rather chaotic situation, other writers have thought a return to Aristotelian ethics opportune-a move that would enable us to reconnect with the long tradition of virtue-based morality represented therein, while bringing it up to date. In fact, the introduction of the concept of virtue offers many opportunities for the shaping of a morality that takes the human person into account. Virtue is a dynamic human quality acquired through education and personal effort. It forms character and assures continuity in action. Furthermore, it is set within the framework of community and a strong tradition, to whose development it contributes. Teaching on virtue would seem to be a good corrective for excessive individualism. This is what the socalled "communitarian" trend has emphasized.3 The debate on virtue has also surfaced within traditional Catholic teaching. Since the first half of this century, under the inspiration of St. Thomas, several authors of moral theology textbooks have undertaken to reorganize special morality on the basis of the virtues rather than the ten commandments, as had been done since the seventeenth century.4 Admittedly, the change Aristotelian construct of the virtues held by Macintyre. With the moderns he rejects a natural foundation for morality, within man, and thus robs the virtues he treats of their deep roots. Virtue is not spontaneous; it remains voluntaristic. 2 To mention a few titles: K. 0. Apel, Transformation der Philosophie, 2 vols. (Frankfurt, 1981); Apel, Ethique de la discussion (Paris, 1994); J.M. Ferry, Philosophie de la communication (Paris, 1994); Jiirgen Habermas, Theorie des kommunikativen Handeln, 2 vols. (Frankfurt, 1981); Habermas, Moralbewusstsein und kommunikativer Handeln (Frankfurt, 1983); John Rawls, A Theory ofJustice (Harvard, 1971). 3 See, for example: J. H. Joder, Jesus et le politique: La radicalite ethique de la croix (Lausanne, 1984); S. Hauerwas, The Peacable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame, 1983); W. Reese-Schafer, Was ist Kommunitarismus? (Frankfurt, 1994); Charles Taylor, The Sources ofthe Self: The Making ofthe Modern Identity (Cambridge, Mass., 1989... (shrink)

Este artículo pretende mostrar las líneas fundamentales de la teoría merleaupontyana acerca de la violencia, centrándonos en sus «escritos de guerra». Consta de cuatro epígrafes: una Introducción en la que describimos la situación histórica que influye en la propuesta de Merleau-Ponty, así como explicamos las expresiones «mains sales»-«mains propres». Un segundo apartado en el que caracterizamos las «manos limpias» en base al optimismo democrática el cual se apoya en una conciencia pura. En el tercer epígrafe hacemos patente la crítica merleau-pontyana (...) a los fundamentos teóricos de los «manos limpias» y señalamos su nuevo concepto de humanismo cuya figura central es Maquiavelo. Asimismo, nos detenemos en la ambigüedad existente entre la coexistencia primigenia y la violencia, de modo que una llama a la otra. Finalmente, concluimos definiendo a Merleau-Ponty como «filósofo de la Modernidad», concepto que adquiere un nuevo matiz en su obra.  . (shrink)

El concepto problemático que guía este trabajo es el que, a partir de la aparición del volumen Naturalizing Phenomenology (1999), han propuesto los defensores, así como también los detractores, del proyecto que pretende re-introducir el aporte de la fenomenología en la investigación de las ciencias ..

El propósito de este artículo es poner de manifiesto cómo la ciencia y la filosofía reflexiva son insuficientes para Merleau-Ponty, fenomenólogo que pretende dar con lo que el mundo vivido es. La ciencia no sirve a sus fines porque ha olvidado su raigambre en el universo experimentado por un sujeto y ha construido un supra-mundo susceptible de un conocimiento cierto y evidente. Por su parte, la filosofía reflexiva tampoco le resulta apropiada porque también ha olvidado su cuna en el mundo (...) vivido y, para obtener un conocimiento verdadero de aquello que estudia, se ha centrado únicamente en un "mundo-representación" depurado de cualquier elemento contaminante que imponga limites a un saber plenamente racional. Merleau-Ponty deja de lado ambos procederes y busca un método que le permita contactar con el mundo tal cusí es, en toda su riqueza y esplendor. (shrink)

In this paper, I critically reconstruct the development of Merleau-Pontyan phenomenology and “radical embodied cognitive science” out of Berlin-School Gestalt theory. I first lay out the basic principles of Gestalt theory and then identify two ways of revising that theory: one route, followed by enactivism and ecological psychology, borrows Gestaltist resources to defend a pragmatic ontology. I argue, however, that Merleau-Ponty never endorses this kind of ontology. Instead, I track his second route toward an ontology of “flesh.” I show how (...) Merleau-Ponty’s arguments for this ontology depend upon criticisms of Gestalt Psychology to which radical embodied cognitive science remains vulnerable, and show that it leads him to a romantic philosophy of nature. (shrink)

Originally published in 1988, M.C. Dillon's classic study of Merleau-Ponty is now available in a revised second edition containing a new preface and a new chapter on "Truth in Art." Dillon's thesis is that Merleau-Ponty has developed the first genuine alternative to ontological dualism seen in Western philosophy. From his early work on the philosophical significance of the human body to his later ontology of flesh, Merleau-Ponty shows that the perennial problems growing out of dualistic conceptions of mind and body, (...) subject and object, immanence and transcendence can be resolved within the framework of a new way of thinking based on the exemplar of the worldly embodiment of thought. (shrink)

The French philosopher Renaud Barbaras remarked that late in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s career, “The phenomenology of perception fulfills itself as a philosophy of expression.” In _Tracing Expression in Merleau-Ponty: Aesthetics, Philosophy of Biology, and Ontology, _Véronique M. Fóti_ _addresses the guiding yet neglected theme of expression in Merleau-Ponty’s thought. She traces Merleau-Ponty’s ideas about how individuals express creative or artistic impulses through his three essays on aesthetics, his engagement with animality and the “new biology” in the second of his lecture courses (...) on nature of 1957–58, and in his late ontology, articulated in 1964 in the fragmentary text of _Le visible et l’invisible _. With the exception of a discussion of Merleau-Ponty’s 1945 essay “Cezanne’s Doubt,” Fóti engages with Merleau-Ponty’s late and final thought, with close attention to both his scientific and philosophical interlocutors, especially the continental rationalists. Expression shows itself, in Merleau-Ponty’s thought, to be primordial, and this innate and fundamental nature of expression has implications for his understanding of artistic creation, science, and philosophy. (shrink)

The intent of the article is to define merleau-ponty's place in the phenomenological tradition and, at the same time, to defend his standpoint, especially on those issues where his thought represents a departure from the tradition. although merleau-ponty espouses a form of the husserlian doctrine of the intentionality of consciousness, his understanding of intentionality differs in several fundamental respects from husserl's. the article attempts to show specifically where merleau-ponty's gestalt- theoretical orientation leads him to modify such basic aspects of husserl's (...) concept of intentionality as the noesis-noema distinction and the claim for atemporality of meaning. a critical comparison is drawn between merleau- ponty's concept of intentionality and that of aron gurwitsch. in a more positive vein, the article provides an extended exegesis of merleau-ponty's position on this central concept in phenomenology, and it also tries to relate the exposition of intentionality to merleau-ponty's thesis of the primacy of perception. finally, an attempt is made to reveal the ontological ramifications implicit in merleau-ponty's revisions to the doctrine of intentionality. (edited). (shrink)

This book aims to clarify interdependence as a concept and to reveal the ontological commitments that demonstrate how this notion can help us address a range of contemporary issues in ethics, politics, environmental ethics, and interspecies concerns. The term interdependence is often mentioned in contemporary political and social discourses without a clear appreciation for its conceptual commitments and practical implications. Daly addresses these deficiencies through cogent analyses of phenomenology that interrogate and reconfigure our understandings of the various natural, interpersonal, cultural, (...) and political domains key to our living in a shared world. The book’s conceptual framework is organized around Merleau-Ponty’s non-dualist and relational ontology, which underpins human subjects and other living beings in what he calls an "interworld." Each of the seven chapters outlines a different interworld—natural, perceptual, aesthetic, linguistic, philosophical, ethical, and political—and shows how phenomenology as a philosophy of lived experience is uniquely placed to reveal the significance and background conditions of that world. The book also engages with the commitments and methodologies of other disciplines, notably psychology, neuroscience, and political theory, to shed new light on the vexing issues contained within these interworlds. (shrink)

M. Merleau-Ponty and F. H. Jacobi’s Revelation against Kantian IntellectualismThe goal of this article is to shed light on the neglected connection between Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1819) and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961). It will be shown through certain themes –I) being in the world, II) description, III) reflexion, IV) revelation and the V) primacy of perception – how Merleau-Ponty echoes Jacobi’s criticism of German Idealism during the Pantheist Quarrel, particularly towards Immanuel Kant’s intellectualist stance, two centuries prior to the Phénoménologie de (...) la perception. Through a historical and philological lens, this article aims to specifically demonstrate how Merleau-Ponty and Jacobi share a common ontology against Kantian intellectualism.La rivelazione di M. Merleau-Ponty e F. H. Jacobi contro l’intellettualismo kantianoL’obiettivo di questo articolo è chiarire la trascurata relazione tra Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1819) e Maurice Merlau-Ponty (1908-1961). Attraverso l’analisi di alcune tematiche – l’essere nel mondo, la descrizione, la riflessione, la rivelazione –, mostreremo come nella filosofia di Merleau-Ponty riecheggi la critica all’idealismo tedesco formulata da Jacobi all’epoca della disputa sul panteismo e diretta, in particolar modo e con due secoli di anticipo rispetto alla Fenomenologia della Percezione, alle posizioni intellettualiste di Kant. Grazie ad una lettura storica e filologica, questo articolo tenta di dimostrare come Merleau-Ponty e Jacobi condividano un’ontologia comune in opposizione all’intellettualismo kantiano. (shrink)

This is a worthy addition to P. U. F.'s useful series, "Philosophes." Robinet succeeds in touching, briefly but illuminatingly, on all important aspects of Merleau-Ponty's thought, including the renewed interest in ontological questions in the posthumous Le Visible et l'Invisible. The philosopher's political writings, which have been dismissed as irrelevant by some students of Merleau-Ponty, are shown to be the product of an inquiry into our "perception of history." Of note, also, are Robinet's remarks concerning his subject's historical antecedents, among (...) whom he regards Malebranche as especially important.—W. L. M. (shrink)

La fenomenología de Merleau-Ponty disuelve el problema del otro y se concentra en describir la coexistencia fáctica que deriva de la intersubjetividad. Ésta es primeramente, intercorporeidad en el mundo, institución de sentido y comunicación. La influencia de Ideen II de Husserl es crucial para el desarrollo de estos conceptos. En este artículo, estudiamos la ampliación de los mismos en la ontología merleau-pontiana de la carne y su reversibilidad. El esclarecimiento del verdadero sentido de ésta nos permitirá contestar a algunas de (...) sus críticas. (shrink)

The aim of this note is to undermine structural realism by testing the soundness of its main claim. If scientific theories represent the structure of the world, structural realism needs a general account of representation. Representation is the crux of structural realism, because structure/ontology distinction collapses. Mathematical structures are ontologyladen. • DOI:10.5007/1808-1711.2010v14n2p201.

The article tries to show that both resolution of the mind-body problem and adequate description of the phenomenal body depend upon the ontology presupposed in offering such a resolution or description. a detailed analysis of sartre's treatment of the body demonstrates that his failures are a result of his neo-cartesian ontology. both the critique and the resolution proposed toward the end take their departure from merleau- ponty's thesis of the ontological primacy of phenomena.

[This is a commentary article on Michel Bitbol's TA: "The Tangled Dialectic of Body and Consciousness: A Metaphysical Counterpart of Radical Neurophenomenology".] -/- A summary of the major metaphysical positions reveals them to be variable enough that they do not deny experience to the researcher. Further, Merleau-Ponty’s intra-ontology and related terms are fleshed out.

"Si le "jargon de l'authenticité" a sans doute rendu nombre de phénoménologies incapables de penser l'histoire et le politique, Merleau-Ponty a su le faire au coeur des textes étrangement les moins commentés, dans leur lien même, ceux des cours au Collège de France de 1954-1955: L'Institution et La Passivité. Des cours que cet ouvrage se propose enfin de relire, en discussion serrée avec l'ensemble de l'oeuvre merleau-pontienne, tant celle qui les précède que celle qui leur succède, pour la dévoiler autrement. (...) Cela, en trois temps, qui sont autant de "lectures de Merleau-Ponty", et de portes d'entrée dans son oeuvre la moins connue. Trois temps formant les parties de cet ouvrage qui suivent l'élaboration du concept merleau-pontien d'institution dans son rapport même à la passivité, sans chronologie fixe, et sans voeu de systématicité, mais en tentant d'être fidèle à la rédaction même de ces notes de cours d'une rare densité. Des cours qui foisonnent de références, tant à son oeuvre propre qu'aux nombreux auteurs avec lesquels Merleau-Ponty dialogue, tissant ainsi de nouveaux liens thématiques, et n'hésitant pas, par exemple, au coeur même d'un chapitre sur le vivant, à évoquer la question de la révolution marxiste. De Ruyer, Gesell, Lévi-Strauss, Alquié, Lachièze-Rey, à Sartre et Freud, etc., ce sont autant de dialogues qui éclairent en effet l'oeuvre et l'auto-critique de Merleau-Ponty, qui se confronte ici, mieux que nulle part ailleurs, à l'échec de son oeuvre passée, comme au contexte de l'époque. Plutôt qu'une exégèse ou qu'une interprétation orthodoxe, il s'agit au fond de continuer la pensée de Merleau-Ponty en questionnant ses dilemmes, ceux de la praxis mais aussi et en amont ceux de la méthode entre analogie et métaphore, en puisant à des essais qu'il aura en partie abandonnés, et qui nous semblent pourtant les plus prometteurs. D'où le pluriel, encore, de ces lectures."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

This paper brings to light the significance of Merleau-Ponty’s thinking for contemporary physics. The point of departure is his 1956–57 Collège de France lectures on Nature, coupled with his reflections on the crisis in modern physics appearing in THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE. Developments in theoretical physics after his death are then explored and a deepening of the crisis is disclosed. The upshot is that physics’ intractable problems of uncertainty and subject-object interaction can only be addressed by shifting its philosophical (...) base from objectivism to phenomenology, as Merleau-Ponty suggested. Merleau-Ponty’s allusion to “topological space” in THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE provides a clue for bridging the gap between “hard science” and “soft philosophy.” This lead is pursued in the present paper by employing the paradoxical topology of the Klein bottle. The hope is that, by “softening” physics and “hardening” phenomenology, the “two cultures” (cf. C. P. Snow) can be wed and a new kind of science be born. (shrink)

Este trabajo se propone en primer lugar explicitar el rol fundamental que la reflexión de Merleau-Ponty otorga a los otros sujetos corporales como copartícipes en mi percepción del mundo. Avanzando más allá de esta figura primaria de la alteridad relativa a una comunidad intercorporal anónima, las secciones segunda y tercera pretenderán reconocer el lugar que corresponde en esta filosofía a otras figuras fundadas y derivadas, tales como la del conflicto y la alternancia de los roles del sujeto y el sujeto (...) objetivado y, por último, la de un posible vínculo de reconocimiento recíproco entre sujetos personales, únicos y singulares. In the first place, this paper intends to elucidate the fundamental role that Merleau-Ponty's reflection grants to other corporeal subjects as copartners in my perception of the world. Moving beyond this primary figure of alterity, that of an intercorporeal anonymous community, the second and third sections will aim to recognize the place that this philosophy grants to other founded and secondary figures, such as the conflict and alternation of the roles of the subject and the objectified subject, and finally, a possible relationship of reciprocal recognition between personal, unique and singular subjects. (shrink)

Renowed historian E.P. Thompson (1924-1993) single-handedly changed the marxist understanding of class and class consciousness in his pivotal book The Making of the English Working Class (1963). Thompson not only took issue with the economic and technological determinism that plagued marxist theory, he also took issue with philosophers — Althusser, Foucault, Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, etc. — who variously described history as a process without a subject. Thompson was wary of philosophers. He nonetheless approvingly quotes Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961) in his polemical (...) essay The Poverty of Theory (1978). This surprising reference went unnoticed to this day. Following Thompson’s original reference to Merleau-Ponty’s The Structure of Behavior (1942) leads one to a number of observations that the french philosopher made to history, social classes and class counsciousness in works such as Phenomenology of Perception (1945), Sense and Non-Sense (1948) and the Adventures of the Dialectic (1955). Those various observations show that Thompson and Merleau-Ponty shared the same phenomenological understanding of class consciousness. (shrink)

Objectivo do presente artigo é proceder a uma investigação sobre até que ponto o comentário merleau-pontyano ao projeto crítico do racionalismo clássico está vinculado às teses por meio das quais o próprio Maurice Merleau-Ponty descreve a fala, O autor do artigo pretende compreender até que ponto, segundo Merleau-Ponty, a experiência da fala é capaz de instituir e sedimentar pensamentos, mas também de se fazer esquecer, a ponto de nos levar a acreditar–tal como sucedeu aos racionalistas –na prevalência e na autonomia (...) do pensamento. /// The present paper intends to be an examination of how the Merleau-pontyan commentary on the critical project of classical racionalism binds up with the thesis by which Maurice Merleau-Ponty describes the speech phenomenon. The author sets out an understanding of how, according to Merleau-Ponty, the experience of speech can put to work and posits thoughts but at the same time also turns itself into forgetfulness, to the point of making us believe–as it was the case with classical rationalism–in the prevailing and autonomous character of thought. (shrink)

The issue of habit appears frequently in the Phenomenology of Perception, but nowhere in this book does Merleau-Ponty treat it in an exclusive way. He uses it rather to explain the pre-reflective nature of the original relationship of the person with the world that surrounds him or her, a theme that runs throughout all his work. This article first presents some ideas regarding the Structure of Behavior that serve as a background to understand Merleau-Ponty’s view of habit. The analysis then (...) focuses on the Phenomenology of Perception, in which Merleau-Ponty explains the role of habit as a link and “understanding” that the body has with the world. The space experienced by one’s own body is the first aspect that highlights the importance of habit and serves to introduce a more direct understanding of what Merleau-Ponty conceives as a kind of anchorage of the subject in the world. The article concludes with an explanation of the relationship between habit and freedom. Key words: Merleau-Ponty, habit, own body, lived space, freedom, phenomenology. (shrink)

The project of returning back to the original roots of the phenomenal being and of penetrating into its depths was initiated by painting, namely by Paul Cézanne and his new aesthetics of expression. Cézanne's approach was later adopted by his admirer Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who contributed to it mainly by his invisible dimension of the thought. The close relation between Cézanne's painting and Merleau-Ponty's philosophical work, which in a way transforms the paintings into the words of an elocative language, is the (...) evidence of the bonds existing between philosophy and the works of art. (shrink)

While the French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty remained engaged with artistic creation throughout his entire work, which continues to inspire artists today in manifold ways, no systematic and artistically inclusive study of this dimension of his thought has existed so far. Du sensible à l’œuvre fills this gap by offering not only an in-depth study of Merleau-Ponty’s aesthesiology and aesthetics by international Merleau-Ponty scholars spanning three generations, but also a rich selection of essays by art critics and theorists who assess the (...) impact of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy on their own artistic fields, including cinema, music, literature, film, dance, and installation art. (shrink)

The trajectory of Merleau-Ponty’s career is often seen as a progressive development: he begins by analyzing scientific consciousness in The Structure of Behavior, complements that account with a phenomenological analysis of behavior as lived in Phenomenology of Perception, and then overcomes the “philosophy of consciousness” to which the earlier texts are committed in the turn toward an ontology of flesh in The Visible and the Invisible. Through close readings of Merleau-Ponty’s engagements with Gestalt psychology in The Structure of Behavior, I (...) argue that the immanent critique of Gestalt theory in that text already anticipates the chiasmic logic of flesh. This challenges the idea of a turn in Merleau-Ponty’s thinking. I begin by outlining the elemental, carnal, and reversible status of flesh. With careful attention to his source materials, I then distinguish Merleau-Ponty’s appropriations of Gestalt theoretical insights from his critical adaptations, defending three claims: (1) The Structure of Behavior borrows insights from Gestalt theorists that are undermined by their own, realistic ontology; (2) it modifies those insights to explicitly acknowledge the elemental status of nature; and (3) those modifications enable Merleau-Ponty to re-interpret Gestalt psychologists’ empirical findings, outlining how consciousness must emerge from nature as both carnal and reversible. (shrink)

SR proteins are essential for the splicing of messenger RNA precursors in vitro, where they also alter splice site selection in a concentration‐dependent manner. Although experiments involving overexpression or dominant mutations have confirmed that these proteins can influence RNA processing decisions in vivo, similar results with loss‐of‐function mutations have been lacking. Now, a system for genetic depletion of the chicken B cell line DT40 has revealed that the SR protein ASF/SF2 (alternative splicing factor/splicing factor 2) is essential for viability in (...) these cells(1). This study opens the way for a complete functional dissection of this protein, and other SR proteins, in vivo. (shrink)

« Qui voit ? » C’est à partir de cette question cartésienne, devenue aussi la sienne, et des transformations qu’il lui fait subir, que le privilège de la peinture chez Merleau-Ponty est à comprendre. Du même coup, et a contrario, on saisit pourquoi la musique, comme le regrette Raymond Court, n’a pas donné à penser à Merleau-Ponty, qui, dit-on, écoutait Mozart au moment où la mort l’a frappé. Or, comme la peinture n’existe qu’à prendre corps dans les œuvres des peintres, (...) il y a encore lieu de se demander quels ont été « les peintres » de Merleau-Ponty. Et que lui ont-ils fait voir ?« Who sees ? » It is on the basis of this Cartesian question, which Maurice Merleau-Ponty made his own, that we can understand the sort of « privilege » painting seems to deserve within his thought. At the same time, we can grasp why, when drawing up his ontology of the Flesh, he did not pay attention to music, despite his fondness of it. This lacuna was reproached by Raymond Court, who insisted on the intimate relationship between music and the flesh . But once we acknowledge the main reasons he had to give painting priority, we may ask what he was looking for when he considered some of the modern painters as for instance Cézanne or Paul Klee. And what indeed did they make him see ? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Anonymous Temporality and Gender:Rereading Merleau-PontyMegan M. BurkeThis Essay Provides a Feminist reading of Merleau-Ponty’s notion of anonymity in order to show that it is a critical resource for a feminist account of gender. For Merleau-Ponty, anonymity is a structure of temporality that is prior to the cogito; it is a time that actualizes the reflective self. It gestures away from ontological commitments rooted in presence and calls attention to (...) how senses inform and actualize one’s reflective experience, which illuminates how it is that certain habits become sedimented or deeply rooted into the structure of one’s lived experience. As such, anonymity provides a useful framework for understanding how and in what ways gender normativity is taken up and resisted in experience. Yet feminist readings of Merleau-Ponty and anonymity are divided. On the one hand, there is a strong criticism of his work in general and anonymity in particular and, on the other hand, there is an effort to recuperate aspects of his project, including anonymity. Four examples can help frame this disparate feminist reception of his work:1. Merleau-Ponty neglects sexual difference. For example, Elizabeth Grosz suggests, “Merleau-Ponty leaves out—indeed, is unable to address—the questions of sexual difference, the question of what kind of human body he is discussing, what kind of perceptual functions, and what kind of sexual desire result from the sexual morphology and particularity of the subject” (Grosz 1994, 10). [End Page 138]2. Anonymity neglects sexual difference. Shannon Sullivan is representative of this point, claiming, “Merleau-Ponty’s notion of the anonymous or impersonal body … leads one to overlook” difference; “Merleau-Ponty fails to realize” difference; “He is wrong” (Sullivan 2001, 71).3. Anonymity illuminates sexual difference. For Silvia Stoller “[W]ith the help of Merleau-Ponty … sexual difference presupposes an anonymous sexuality which underlies gender identifications,” making anonymity important to a phenomenological account of sexual difference (Stoller 2013).4. Merleau-Ponty’s account of embodied subjectivity provides insight into the lived experience of femininity. Feminist analyses of female body comportment, such as those of Iris Marion Young and Sandra Bartky, suggest that gender is a process of sedimentation (Young 1990; Bartky 1990). More specifically, they suggest gender becomes a lived experience through the repetition of particular behaviors and actions such that they become a deeply habituated part of one’s being in the world.While the feminist criticisms of Merleau-Ponty are important insofar as they caution against the acceptance of universal claims about existence, they also overlook anonymity’s relationship to time. Given that Merleau-Ponty’s characterization of anonymity is temporal through and through, this oversight is problematic. Without an account of anonymity as a kind of temporality, we miss the value of anonymity and the further insight that can be drawn from it in relation to gender. In what follows, then, I propose a solution to the disparate reception of his work. I suggest that reading anonymity as a structure of temporality illuminates how gender is taken up in lived experience. And, I suggest that anonymity can provide a strong account of gender normativity when one understands the parallels between sedimentation and anonymity with respect to temporality. By showing the strong connection between sedimentation and anonymous temporality, I suggest that it is ontologically and politically helpful to understand gender as a lived time.In the first section of this paper, I will address the main criticisms of anonymity provided by Shannon Sullivan and Luce Irigaray, while also paying attention to those from Elizabeth Grosz, Judith Butler, and Beata Stawarska. For Sullivan, Grosz, and Butler, Merleau-Ponty’s anonymous body is a neutral body, a body that fails to account for gender differences. Irigaray and Stawarska suggest that anonymity is the mark of patriarchy, making ethical and ontological solipsism fundamental to Merleau-Ponty’s work. In each of these cases, anonymity provides nothing useful for and is, in fact, a detriment to feminist projects.In the second section of this paper, I turn to Stoller’s positive reading of anonymity. For Stoller, anonymity is a political and ethical resource that challenges gender norms because it can allow for transformation in... (shrink)

The article defends the unification of criteria in the style of academic writing and its transmission thru publication. It includes information of the dossier published 2003 by the University of Granada with the title: “Norm evaluation, editorial quality and diffusion of scientific magazines published by University Complutense of Madrid Press”. It focus in one of the aspects most relevant of the publications: the information the authors must have if they want the greater impact and methodological quality of their publications. Along (...) four chapters it is made a selection of parameters and criteria the scientific publications must meet, following the new national and international standards. It is applied, also, to the implementation and items of the magazine Anales del Seminario de Historia de la Filosofìa. Finally, a selection of norms, thesaurus, and style manuals is presented, with the explicit aim of facilitate the difficult road of the scientific communication. (shrink)

This paper aims to reflect on the possibilities of approaching the phenomenon of memory in relation to space. In order to approach memory on “the side ofspace”, we will find our first decisive guidelines in M. Merleau-Ponty’s analysis of habit developed in Phenomenology of Perception. Starting from there, we will then try to show in what way memory, in a way, can be said to belong to places. The final point of the discussion is Ricœur’s investigation of architecture and urbanism’s (...) analogies with narrative, as they allow us to consider a hermeneutic approach to the spatial fabric of time. (shrink)

Perception et action : la pluralité des styles perceptifs selon M. Merleau-Ponty et I. MurdochAutant M. Merleau-Ponty que I. Murdoch ont souligné la pluralité des styles perceptifs comme un aspect structurel de l’expérience, rigoureusement lié à la configuration morale du percevant. La compréhension de l’agir humain s’insère dans l’optique d’une ampleur perceptive plus ou moins grande, sans ignorer que les évaluations morales entrent comme facteurs d’orientation dans les descriptions du monde. Les deux auteurs posent la compréhension de l’activité pratique en (...) connexion stricte avec la structuration perceptive, réfutant la mythification de pseudofacultés psychologiques comme le désir, le choix, la volonté. Leurs propositions les plus intéressantes pour leurs conséquences implicites dans le champ éthique concernent la confi guration plurielle du perçu et ses possibilités de remodulation qui permettent une réorganisation continue de l’expérience. L’article relève quelques différences de développement dans cette position commune et identifie certains noeuds problématiques irrésolus qui sont l’objet de débats éthiques actuels.Perception and Action: The Plurality of Perceptual Styles according to M. Merleau-Ponty and I. MurdochM. Merleau-Ponty, just as much as I. Murdoch, has emphasized the plurality of perceptual styles as a structural aspect of experience, rigorously linked tothe moral configuration of the perceiver. The understanding of human action fits into the optics of a more or less large perceptual range, without ignoringthat moral evaluations enter as orienting factors into descriptions of the world. The two authors posit the understanding of practical activity in strictconnection with perceptual structuration, refuting the mythification of such pseudo-faculties as desire, choice, and will. Those propositions of theirs whoseimplied consequences are the most interesting for the field of ethics concern the plural configuration of the perceived and its possibilities of remodulationthat permit a continuous reorganization of experience. The article takes up several differences in the development of this common position and identifiescertain problematic and unresolved knots that are the object of current ethical debates. (shrink)

In our paper we aim to meditate on the concept of depth (profondeur) in the works of M. Merleau-Ponty, as it is a key notion to understand the French philosopher’s concept of space. Furthermore we will try to show that space plays a fundamental role in the development of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, allowing us to understand important features both of his phenomenological readings and ontological project.

Essays exploring a rich intersection between phenomenology and idealism with contemporary relevance.

Este trabajo analiza cómo Merleau-Ponty emplea la fenomenología y el marxismo para comprender la evolución de su situación histórica. La autora distingue una primera fase, marcada por la experiencia vivida de la guerra y la esperanza marxista, de otra que comienza en 1950, se desencanta del comunismo y aboga por una izquierda no comunista o un nuevo liberalismo. Afirma que el filósofo no experimenta una conversión, ya que continúa criticando el sistema soviético, tanto como las insuficiencias de la democracia occidental. (...) Aunque defiende las libertades de Occidente, no se adhiere al anti-comunismo, sino que continúa denunciando a ambos bloques. La autora vincula esta segunda etapa con el curso sobre la “institución” impartido por Merleau-Ponty. Evalúa, finalmente, las consecuencias políticas de su nueva ontología y su validez para el presente. (shrink)

Inspired by the genetic phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the historical epistemology of Georges Canguilhem, this paper defends a theory of normativity grounded in pathos rather than logos. Proceeding from the double assumption that accounts of the origins of normativity circulated in antiquity and modernity are unsatisfactory, and the determinacy of norms remains a central problem not only for moral theory but also for epistemology, political theory, and even medicine, the author contends that the realm of lived experience can help (...) us furnish determinate though often pre-thetic norms that can underwrite or justify “non-moral normative distinctions,” such as the distinction between the just and the unjust in political theory and the distinction between the normal and the pathological in medicine. With the aid of comparative and hermeneutic analysis, the author establishes that Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception shares with Canguilhem’s The Normal and the Pathological a similar understanding of the norming and normative character of subjective experience and, moreover, that in these works one can find a “pathic” theory of norms that can give us, as the author puts it, “a new foundation for the very possibility of critique” in our post-Enlightenment moment. (shrink)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty enjoys a special place among contemporary French bourgeois philosophers and aestheticians. Statements by Sartre, Camus, Hyppolite, Dufrenne, Ricoeur, Geroux, Lévi-Strauss, and others show that they experienced in one way or another the influence of this philosopher. For example, all French phenomenologists and existentialists recognize that Merleau-Ponty was the first to take up and pursue, on French soil, the elaboration of the ideas of Husserlian phenomenology and German existentialism. One cannot fail to note that various kinds of antidialectical and (...) metaphysical notions have come into being under the direct and powerful influence of Merleau-Ponty. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception (1945), written after his extensive research in psychology, anthropology, and the other social sciences and also after his intensive encounter with the thought of Husserl and Heidegger, is an attempt to leave those malevolent dualisms behind and replace them with a phenomenology that engages with beings as befits their essence and the conditions of their being: a phenomenology that no longer imposes on our experience a morally irresponsible and offensive ontology; a phenomenology that, instead, reminds us (...) of our responsibility as guardians of nature and life and brings to light very new possibilities for ethical life, community, and dwelling on the earth of this planet. (shrink)

If the a priori is the proper subject matter of transcendental philosophy, then the problems of the a priori are also problems for transcendental philosophy. the idea that defines transcendental philosophy is the idea that there are stable general structures which are discernible in experience, provide the foundations of our knowledge of it, and collectively constitute an a priori which transcends experience and informs it. the a priori is traditionally conceived as a nexus of relations which is held to be (...) logically/temporally prior to experience and responsible for its organization. in this essay, i challenge this traditional (kantian) understanding of the a priori and set forth an alternative to it based on the writings of maurice merleau-ponty. the intent is to provide a new conception of transcendental philosophy. (shrink)

Recent debates on phenomenal consciousness have shown renewed interest for the idea that experience generally includes an experience of the self – a self-experience – whatever else it may present the self with. When a subject has an ordinary experience (as of a bouncing red ball, for example), the thought goes, she is not just phenomenally aware of the world as being presented in a certain way (a bouncy, reddish, roundish way in this case); she is also phenomenally aware of (...) the fact that it is presented to her. This supposed phenomenal dimension has been variously called “mineness”, “for-me-ness”, “pre-reflective self-awareness” and “subjective character”, among others. This view, associated with historical figures such as William James, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty and Sartre, is attracting a new surge of attention at the crossroads of phenomenology, analytic philosophy of mind and the philosophy of cognitive science, but also intense controversy. This book explores some of the questions running through the ongoing debate on the putative subjective dimension of experience: Does it exist?, the existence question; What is it?, the essence question; What is it for?, the function question; and What else does it explain?, the explanation question. The volume also surveys various domains of human experience, both normal and pathological, where a “sense of self” might be at play, including agency, bodily awareness, introspection, memory, emotions and values, and offers insights into the possible relations between the notions of subjective awareness involved. The first part of the book is devoted to more sceptical or deflationary views about self-experience, and the second, to more robust ones. (shrink)

Objections to the computational theory of cognition, inspired by twentieth century phenomenology, have tended to fixate on the embodiment and embeddedness of intelligence. In this paper I reconstruct a line of argument that focusses primarily on the abstract nature of scientific models, of which computational models of the brain are one sort. I observe that the critique of scientific abstraction was rather commonplace in the philosophy of the 1920s and 30s and that attention to it aids the reading of The (...) Organism ([1934] 1939) by the neurologist Kurt Goldstein. With this background in place, we see that some brief but spirited criticisms of cybernetics by two later thinkers much influenced by Goldstein, Georges Canguilhem (1963) and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1961), show continuity with the earlier discussions of abstraction in science. (shrink)