Research in Phenomenology 38 (1):41-71 (2008)
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Abstract |
Merleau-Ponty's reference to "a past which has never been present" at the end of "Le sentir" challenges the typical framework of the Phenomenology of Perception, with its primacy of perception and bodily field of presence. In light of this "original past," I propose a re-reading of the prepersonal as ground of perception that precedes the dichotomies of subject-object and activity-passivity. Merleau-Ponty searches in the Phenomenology for language to describe this ground, borrowing from multiple registers (notably Bergson, but also Husserl). This "sensory life" is a coexistence of sensing and sensible—bodily and worldly—rhythms. Perception is, then, not a natural given, but a temporal process of synchronization between rhythms. By drawing on Bergson, this can be described as a process in which virtual life is actualized into perceiving subject and object perceived. Significantly, this process involves non-coincidence or delay whereby sensory life is always already past for perception.
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Keywords | PERCEPTION PREPERSONAL PAST MERLEAU-PONTY BERGSON |
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DOI | 10.1163/156916408x258942 |
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References found in this work BETA
Phenomenology and the Sciences of Man.Maurice Merleau-Ponty - 1964 - In James M. Edie (ed.), The Primacy of Perception. Evanston, USA: Northwestern University Press.
View all 16 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
Feminist Phenomenology.Alia Al-Saji - 2017 - In Serene Khader, Ann Garry & Alison Stone (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Feminist Philosophy. New York, NY, USA: Routledge. pp. 143-154.
Anonymity and Personhood: Merleau-Ponty’s Account of the Subject of Perception.Sara Heinämaa - 2015 - Continental Philosophy Review 48 (2):123-142.
Love as a Hollow: Merleau‐Ponty's Promise of Queer Love.Megan M. Burke - 2017 - Hypatia 32 (1):54-68.
The End of All Things: Geomateriality and Deep Time.Ted Toadvine - 2021 - Investigaciones Fenomenológicas 7:367.
The Disarticulation of Time: The Zeitbewußtsein in Phenomenology of Perception.Keith Whitmoyer - 2015 - Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 46 (3):213-232.
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