Abstract

Merleau-Ponty insisted that his better-known Phenomenology of Perception could be fully understood only if it were read along with this, his first book. It works through Pavlov's reflexology, Watsonian behaviorism, Gestalt psychology, and the philosophies of Bergson and Brunschvicg, showing the limits and fallacies of each approach. Merleau-Ponty's own procedures and terms arise to accomplish the work these men left over; his initial task is to show that there is work they cannot do, problems they cannot solve, wonders they have forgotten. The theory of structure replaces a theory of form by adding the dimension of "signification" which the former left out. This book permits no doubt that serious phenomenology rejects immediate intuitions, and that description involves continuous labor.--C. D.