Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Edited by David Morris (Concordia University)
About this topic
Summary | Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961) is best known for his contributions to phenomenology, in particular to phenomenological approaches to the body, perception, and consciousness in relation to nature. This also leads him to contributions in aesthetics, ontology, and the philosophy of nature, philosophy of science and philosophy of psychology. Through critical engagement with Marxism, in his philosophical and popular writings, he also contributes to social and political philosophy. A contemporary and colleague of figures such as Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Lacan, he was a public intellectual in France. He was Chair of Child Psychology and Pedagogy at the Sorbonne from 1949-52, and was appointed Chair of Philosophy at the Collége de France in 1952. He passed away suddenly at the age of 53, leaving behind a rich though incomplete project in phenomenological ontology and an array of unpublished notes and lectures. |
Key works | The monographs published by Merleau-Ponty in his lifetime (here listed for the English reader in translation, but with original publication dates) are Structure of Behaviour (1943), Phenomenology of Perception (1945), Humanism and Terror (1947), In Praise of Philosophy (1953), and Adventures of the Dialectic (1955). As well, he published collections of essays in Sense and Non-Sense (1948) and Signs (1960). At the time of this death Merleau-Ponty was working on a monograph, incomplete, which was titled The Visible and the Invisible (1961) by its editor, Claude Lefort.The Prose of the World is a project Merleau-Ponty abandoned circa 1952 that was published in 1968, after his death. As well, a number of his lectures courses have been published, drawing on notes from him and his students, on topics such as child psychology, nature, Husserl, institution and passivity, the world of expression and sense, the use of language in literature (see the list of works by Merleau-Ponty for further details). For English readers, The Merleau-Ponty Reader, The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader, and The Primacy of Perception contain helpful collections of and selections from Merleau-Ponty’s published and unpublished texts. Also, The World of Perception, which is a transcription from a series of radio addresses given by Merleau-Ponty in 1948, offers a nice introduction to his early work. |
Introductions | For English readers, the following provide helpful resources and introductions for studying Merleau-Ponty and his texts: The Being of the Phenomenon (Barbaras), Merleau-Ponty (eds. Carman and Hansen), Merleau-Ponty’s Ontology (Dillon), Merleau-Ponty: Key Concepts (eds. Diprose and Reynolds), Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy (Hass), The Merleau-Ponty Dictionary (Landes), The Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty (Madison), Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy (Mallin), Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Merleau-Ponty (Romdenh-Romluc). |
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General Editors:
David Bourget (Western Ontario) David Chalmers (ANU, NYU) Area Editors: David Bourget Gwen Bradford Berit Brogaard Margaret Cameron David Chalmers James Chase Rafael De Clercq Ezio Di Nucci Barry Hallen Hans Halvorson Jonathan Ichikawa Michelle Kosch Øystein Linnebo JeeLoo Liu Paul Livingston Brandon Look Manolo Martínez Matthew McGrath Michiru Nagatsu Susana Nuccetelli Giuseppe Primiero Jack Alan Reynolds Darrell P. Rowbottom Aleksandra Samonek Constantine Sandis Howard Sankey Jonathan Schaffer Thomas Senor Robin Smith Daniel Star Jussi Suikkanen Lynne Tirrell Aness Kim Webster Other editors Contact us Learn more about PhilPapers |