The Journal of Speculative Philosophy

In this article I argue that Merleau-Ponty’s initial reinterpretation of Husserlian phenomenology is premised methodologically on a certain mythic understanding of human embodiment—what I term “the myth of human incarnation.” This is not an objection but a clarification of how Merleau-Ponty resolved the problem of the external horizonality of phenomenological experience on an intuitional (rather than speculative) basis. This methodological priority of myth is implicated in the epistemic status of phenomenological claims concerning prereflective phenomena such as “bodily” intentionality and thus has important consequences for questions concerning the “naturalization” of phenomenology.