Merleau-Ponty and the Measuring Body

Merleau-ponty and the Phenomenology of the Body

By using the term ‘phenomenology’, Merleau-Ponty locates his work in the philosophical tradition effectively founded by Husserl, and implicitly endorses the latter’s opposition to scientific realism, to the view that one should accept the privileged status of the natural sciences as providing descriptions of the real nature of the world, however much these depart from our pre-scientific, common...

The Fold and The Body Schema in Merleau-Ponty and Dynamic Systems Theory

Contemporary thought, whether it be in psychology, biology, immunology, philosophy of perception or philosophy of mind, is confronted with the breakdown of barriers between organism and environment, self and other, subject and object, perceiver and perceived. In this paper I show how Merleau-Ponty can help us think about this problem, by attending to a methodological theme in the background of ...

Habit and embodiment in Merleau-Ponty

INTRODUCTION Merleau-Ponty (French phenomenological philosopher, born in 1908 and deceased in 1961) refers to habit in various passages of his Phenomenology of Perception as a relevant issue in his philosophical and phenomenological position. Through his exploration of this issue he explains both the pre-reflexive character that our original linkage with the world has, as well as the kind of “u...

Merleau-Ponty and the Existential Conception of Science

Stopping the Anthropological Machine: Agamben with Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty

To render inoperative the machine that governs our conception of man will therefore mean … to risk ourselves in this emptiness: the suspension of suspension, Shabbat of both animal and man. (Agamben, The Open 92) In The Open, Giorgio Agamben diagnoses the history of both science and philosophy as part of what he calls the " anthropological machine " through which the human is created with and a...