This paper has two aims. The first is to use contemporary discussions of naïve realist theories of perception to offer an interpretation of Merleau-Ponty’s theory of perception. The second is to use consideration of Merleau-Ponty’s theory of perception to outline a distinctive version of a naïve realist theory of perception. In a Merleau-Pontian spirit, these two aims are inter-dependent. Merle...

Abstract The paper investigates the phenomenon of vitalism through lens vital normativity as expounded by Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Georges Canguilhem. I argue that two authors independently developed complementary critiques mechanical-behaviourist conception life sciences, which culminated in a surprisingly similar notion construed normative (polarized) activity, i.e., an activity is not indif...

In lectures and writings in the decades following publication of Studies Ethnomethodology [1967], Harold Garfinkel, founder ethnomethodology, developed what he called a “misreading” phenomenological Aron Gurwitsch, Maurice Merleau-Ponty others. Garfinkel’s included selective creative treatment themes that Gurwitsch drew from Gestalt psychology, such as figure-ground, contexture, phenomenal fiel...

“Further Considerations of Alienation” attempts to expand upon an earlier essay entitled “Merleau-Ponty and a Reconsideration of Alienation.” From the point of view of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, this new essay considers modernist rationality and the postmodernist free play of language as forms of alienation. The essay attempts to show that Merleau-Ponty joins the company of Marx, Lukács, Haber...

Recent years have seen a rise in the number of sociological, anthropological, and ethnological works on the gift metaphor in organ donation contexts, as well as in the number of philosophical and theological analyses of giving and generosity, which has been mirrored in the ethical debate on organ donation. In order to capture the breadth of this field, four frameworks for thinking about bodily ...