Example Précis
| Abstract | This 1945 “Preface” is intended to answer the question “What is phenomenology?” and to justify it as the methodology of the long work of philosophical psychology to follow. Merleau-Ponty approaches this task by first setting out the apparent paradoxes and contradictory claims that have been advanced by phenomenology, in a long and eloquent survey section that is built on a series of “X, but also Y” rhetorical devices. He then surveys four prominent themes of phenomenology. Just as he does in the introductory section of the essay “The Philosopher and His Shadow,” Merleau-Ponty here presents himself as the chief interpreter and champion of Husserl's later philosophy. The first major theme considered is that phenomenology is a matter of describing the field of perception. This sets it in contrast to the prevalent explanatory methodologies of a) scientific empiricism and b) metaphysical idealism. Empirical science (such as mathematical physics) begins with observation, but then abstracts entirely from lived experience to consider idealized schematic cases (such as motion across a frictionless surface) that may reveal universal laws. Such a methodology is obviously fruitful in important respects, but is nonetheless naïve and dishonest in its renunciation of the specifics of observed events. The metaphysical idealism of Kant or Descartes likewise abstracts from the experienced particularity of perception to posit an “inner man” that constitutes the world according to 2 internal, transcendental principles. Merleau-Ponty's criticism is the same, whether these principles are “reason” of Rationalism, “the categories of understanding” of Critical Rationalism, or the rules governing the “association of ideas” posited by Empiricism. Phenomenology indicates that perception is not an act but a fact; the world is not an object but rather the unified setting of perception; and the inner man is a myth, along with his allegedly privileged access to univocal truth. The second theme is the technique of “phenomenological reduction,” the suspension of belief in the assemblage of everyday assumptions known as the “natural attitude.” Husserl's understanding of the reduction long led him to an idealist position: that all particular consciousnesses are united in a transcendental ego.. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,711 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Only published papers are available at libraries |
Similar books and articlesSara Heinämaa (1999). Merleau-Ponty's Modification of Phenomenology: Cognition, Passion and Philosophy. Synthese 118 (1):49-68.
Raymond J. Devettere (1973). Merleau-Ponty and the Husserlian Reductions. Philosophy Today 17:297-308.
Michael Berman (forthcoming). Reflection, Objectivity, and the Love of God, a Passage From Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception. Heythrop Journal 51 (5).
Frederic L. Bender (1983). Merleau-Ponty and Method: Toward a Critique of Husserlian Phenomenology and of Reflective Philosophy in General. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 14:176-195.
Taylor Carman (2009). Merleau-Ponty and the Mystery of Perception. Philosophy Compass 4 (4):630-638.
Bryan Smyth (2011). The Meontic and the Militant: On Merleau-Ponty's Relation to Fink∗. International Journal of Philosophical Studies 19 (5):669 - 699.
Joel Smith (2005). Merleau-Ponty and the Phenomenological Reduction. Inquiry 48 (6):553-571.
M. C. Dillon (1971). Gestalt Theory and Merleau-Ponty's Concept of Intentionality. Man and World 4 (4):436-459.
Joseph J. Kockelmans (1982). The Function of Psychology in Merleau-Ponty's Early Works. Rev Exist Psych Psychiat 18:119-142.
Trevor Perri (2013). Image and Ontology in Merleau-Ponty. Continental Philosophy Review 46 (1):75-97.
Tom Rockmore (2011). Kant and Phenomenology. University of Chicago Press.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2010-12-22Total downloads7 ( #133,637 of 551,007 )Recent downloads (6 months)3 ( #25,807 of 551,007 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
