Maurice Merleau-Ponty
We do not just have a body, we are our body, and all perception and thought grows out of this bodily being in the world.
Placement
Phenomenology of the body: we do not merely have a body, we are our lived body.
Key ideas
- Lived body
- Perception
- Flesh (chair)
Students: Michel Foucault
Influence
Influenced by 6
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
influenced by
Merleau-Ponty found an existentialism in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit and placed Hegel at the origin of Marxism, Nietzsche, phenomenology and psychoanalysis (‘L’existentialisme chez Hegel’, 1946). M. Merleau-Ponty, “L’existentialisme chez Hegel” (Les Temps modernes, 1946; Sens et non-sens, 1948)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel › 1770–1831
Ferdinand de Saussure
influenced by ✓
Merleau-Ponty took Saussure’s diacritical sign, meaningful only through differences from other signs, into his phenomenology of expression (‘Le langage indirect et les voix du silence’, 1952). M. Merleau-Ponty, “Le langage indirect et les voix du silence” (1952), in Signes (1960); La prose du monde (written 1951–52; publ. 1969); SEP “Maurice Merleau-Ponty”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Ferdinand de Saussure › 1857–1913
Henri Bergson
influenced by
Merleau-Ponty valued Bergson’s return to perception and to being in the making, discussing him in his inaugural lecture (Éloge de la philosophie, 1953) and ‘Bergson se faisant’ (1959). M. Merleau-Ponty, Éloge de la philosophie (1953); “Bergson se faisant” (1959), in Signes (1960); L’union de l’âme et du corps chez Malebranche, Biran et Bergson (lectures 1947–48; publ. 1968); SEP “Maurice Merleau-Ponty”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Henri Bergson › 1859–1941
Edmund Husserl
influenced by ✓
Merleau-Ponty took up Husserl’s themes of lifeworld and lived body, studied in the Louvain archives (1939), and concluded that the reduction is never complete (Phenomenology of Perception, 1945). M. Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la perception (1945), preface; “Le philosophe et son ombre” (1959), in Signes (1960); H. L. Van Breda, “Merleau-Ponty et les Archives-Husserl à Louvain” (1962); SEP “Maurice Merleau-Ponty”
Edmund Husserl › 1859–1938
Jakob von Uexküll
influenced by
In his lectures on nature (1956–60; publ. 1995) Merleau-Ponty read Uexküll’s Umwelt as a melody: animal behaviour unfolds a theme, not a sum of mechanisms. M. Merleau-Ponty, La Nature. Notes, cours du Collège de France (lectures 1956–60; ed. D. Séglard, 1995); J. von Uexküll, Streifzüge durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen (1934)
Evidence: AI draft
Jakob von Uexküll › 1864–1944
Martin Heidegger
influenced by ✓
Merleau-Ponty took up Heidegger’s being-in-the-world as être au monde and reinterpreted it as the pre-reflective engagement of the lived body with its world (Phenomenology of Perception, 1945). M. Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la perception (1945); SEP “Maurice Merleau-Ponty”
Martin Heidegger › 1889–1976
Influenced 7
Simone de Beauvoir
influenced
Beauvoir reviewed Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception in Les Temps modernes (1945) and in The Second Sex (1949) took up his view of the body as situation. S. de Beauvoir, review of La Phénoménologie de la perception, Les Temps modernes (1945); Le Deuxième Sexe (1949); SEP “Simone de Beauvoir”
Evidence: AI draft
Simone de Beauvoir › 1908–1986
Frantz Fanon
influenced
Fanon, who heard Merleau-Ponty in Lyon, found a ‘historico-racial schema’ beneath the phenomenological body schema in the lived experience of Black people (Peau noire, masques blancs, 1952). F. Fanon, Peau noire, masques blancs (1952); M. Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la perception (1945); SEP “Frantz Fanon”
Evidence: AI draft
Frantz Fanon › 1925–1961
Michel Foucault taught
taught ✓
Foucault entered the École normale supérieure in 1946 and attended Merleau-Ponty’s lectures there, among them those on the union of soul and body in Malebranche, Maine de Biran and Bergson (1947–48); Merleau-Ponty was an important early influence. SEP “Michel Foucault”; D. Eribon, Michel Foucault (1989)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Michel Foucault › 1926–1984
Pierre Bourdieu
influenced ✓
Bourdieu drew on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of the lived body for practical sense and bodily hexis, belief enacted in posture and gesture, not represented (Le sens pratique, 1980). P. Bourdieu, Le sens pratique (1980); M. Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la perception (1945); SEP “Maurice Merleau-Ponty”
Pierre Bourdieu › 1930–2002
Charles Taylor
influenced
Taylor took from Merleau-Ponty the idea of embodied agency, a pre-reflective bodily grasp of the world, against representational epistemology (‘Embodied Agency’, 1989; Retrieving Realism, 2015). C. Taylor, “Embodied Agency”, in H. Pietersma (ed.), Merleau-Ponty: Critical Essays (1989); H. Dreyfus and C. Taylor, Retrieving Realism (2015)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Charles Taylor › b. 1931
Iris Marion Young
influenced
Young applied Merleau-Ponty’s motor intentionality to feminine bodily comportment, finding an ‘inhibited intentionality’ caught between ‘I can’ and ‘I cannot’ (‘Throwing Like a Girl’, 1980). I. M. Young, “Throwing Like a Girl”, Human Studies 3 (1980); M. Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la perception (1945)
Evidence: AI draft
Iris Marion Young › 1949–2006
Andy Clark
influenced
Clark took up Merleau-Ponty’s view of the body as the subject of skilled engagement with the world for an embodied, action-oriented cognitive science (Being There, 1997). A. Clark, Being There (1997); M. Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la perception (1945); SEP “Embodied Cognition”
Evidence: AI draft
Andy Clark › b. 1957
Criticism
Criticized by 1
Luce Irigaray
criticised by
Reading ‘The Intertwining – The Chiasm’, Irigaray objected that Merleau-Ponty’s flesh privileges vision and forgets its maternal, tactile origin (Éthique de la différence sexuelle, 1984). L. Irigaray, “L’invisible de la chair. Lecture de Merleau-Ponty, Le visible et l’invisible, ‘L’entrelacs – le chiasme’”, in Éthique de la différence sexuelle (1984)
Evidence: AI draft
Luce Irigaray › b. 1930
Criticizes 3
René Descartes
criticised
Merleau-Ponty rejected Descartes’ split between thinking mind and extended body, analysing perception through the lived body (Phenomenology of Perception, 1945); Eye and Mind (1961) contests his Optics. M. Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la perception (1945); L’Œil et l’esprit (1961), part III, on Descartes’ Dioptrique; SEP “Maurice Merleau-Ponty”
Evidence: AI draft
René Descartes › 1596–1650
Immanuel Kant
criticised
Merleau-Ponty objected that Kant’s reflective analysis makes the world the work of a constituting intellect and passes over perception lived through the body (Phénoménologie de la perception, 1945). M. Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la perception (1945), preface and introduction (critique of ‘intellectualism’)
Evidence: AI draft
Immanuel Kant › 1724–1804
Jean-Paul Sartre
criticised
In Adventures of the Dialectic (1955), chapter 5, Merleau-Ponty attacked Sartre’s ‘ultra-Bolshevism’ as resting on pure decision and ignoring the weight of history and institutions. M. Merleau-Ponty, Les aventures de la dialectique (1955), ch. 5 “Sartre et l’ultra-bolchevisme”; S. de Beauvoir, “Merleau-Ponty et le pseudo-sartrisme” (1955)
Evidence: AI draft
Jean-Paul Sartre › 1905–1980
Works
The body as our being-in-the-world.
The “flesh” of the world – the intertwining of seer and seen.
Position
Merleau-Ponty placed the lived body at the centre of philosophy. We do not perceive the world as detached minds, nor are we mere physical mechanisms; we are bodily beings already engaged with the world before any reflection. Perception is the primary layer of meaning: the body “knows” how to grasp a cup or find its way in a room without explicit thought. Drawing on Gestalt psychology and studies of brain-injured patients, he showed how habit, space and gesture are bodily achievements. In his late work he spoke of the “flesh” of the world, the intertwining of seer and seen. His ideas are central to today’s embodied cognition research.
Life & context
Merleau-Ponty studied at the École normale supérieure, where he befriended Sartre and Beauvoir, and co-founded Les Temps modernes with them after the war. He taught child psychology at the Sorbonne and from 1952 held a chair at the Collège de France. His political break with Sartre came in the 1950s. He died suddenly in 1961, leaving his last work unfinished.
Further main works
- The Structure of Behaviour (1942)
- Humanism and Terror (1947)
- Adventures of the Dialectic (1955)
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