Phenomenology of Perception (Classic Reprint) Maurice Merleau-Ponty 9781334996702 Books
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Excerpt from Phenomenology of Perception
What is phenomenology? It may seem strange that this question has still to be asked half a century after the first works of Husserl. The fact remains that it has by no means been answered.Phenomenology is th
Phenomenology of Perception (Classic Reprint) Maurice Merleau-Ponty 9781334996702 Books
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Phenomenology of Perception (Classic Reprint) Maurice Merleau-Ponty 9781334996702 Books Reviews
While reading this book you get a sense of a man truly on the verge of profound truth. It's a difficult read (the section on time alone will make you wonder if the book is written in English) yet it's importance is still being discovered. More grounded in science than Sartre or Heidegger, MP's work is that of a supremely disciplined thinker, one who builds a case and sees it through a series of arguments supported by actual evidence. (although the evidence is from studies done 50 years ago, it's impressive how much his work still holds up in the face of current cognitive science research)
I have two complaints with the book. One is the translation. While I'm sure MP is a difficult read in any language, the sentence structure is nearly incomprehensible at times. It's hard for me to believe that the best, most accurate translation would leave it so awkward. My second problem is the index. If you ever want to find anything in the book after you read it I suggest you dogear it because the index is a cruel joke.
Great edition of a fantastic text. The slightly larger font makes the text soooo much easier to get through, don't be intimidated by the length! Additionally this is a fantastic translation.
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Merlue-Ponty's magnum opus-- The Phenomenology-- is verbose, esoteric, and seemingly incomprehensible. But, (and that is a LARGE but) do not let this deter you! This work is, in my opinion, an ESSENTIAL read for any person who considers themselves a philosopher! To consider it anything less than canon would be a metaphorical spit in the face to Plato, Descartes, and Kant themselves.
Merlue-Ponty's work is an attempt to reshape the philosophical world presented by his predecessors. Starting from the subjective space, Merlue-Ponty begins with a rather escoteric goal, to define human understanding. With this in mind, MP is tasked for solve, for what he argues intellectualism (Kant) and empiricism cannot due justice to-- an accurate account of human experience. Here then, Merlue-Ponty, working to move past Intellectualism and Empiricism the like, takes radical terms to rightly situate our understanding back within ourselves (and out of the objective space!).
It is multidisciplinary and the best book so far that explains human condition in an adventurous and realistic fashion. To comprehend its themes and theses is surely very daunting, but it opens new horizons before you and makes your life and living very very interesting. You will learn that your life is ambiguous and contingent and that you are both *a pure consciousness* "who makes [or creates] others and the world (things, objects) exist for [you] and *a body* with "a psychological and historical structure". You are everything that you see and you have this means of escape. In other words, you are absolutely free (because you are a pure consciousness) despite the fact that you have a vulnerable and an aging body through which you are also part and parcel of this world. And you journey in this world towards your death. In brief, in the words of Simone de Beauvoir, Phenomenology of Perception by Maurice Merleau-Ponty is not only a remarkable specialist work but a book that is of interest to the whole of man and to every man; the human condition is at stake in this book."
The text of this edition of Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception in English translation is completely corrupt. It is unreadable. Obviously someone has done a quickie job of OCR without going back to correct his or her work. Here is an example "Kant showed, in the Rfjhtjjlioi of Jdeof''!' ^. thaLinner perception isjmpossible witHbut ^ uter perception," Unless you enjoy seeing your money vanish with nothing to show for it, do not buy this book.
This is the new definitive translation which returns the reader to reading much more of the text than trying to understand the translation of Phenomenology of Perception (PoP), incredibly helpful and scholarly notes, and a powerfully useful index. Included in the margins is reference to the 2005 French edition pagination. For other edition concordances you can google "Concordance of Editions" of MP's POP and thereby coordinate with all other versions, French and English.
I think Simon de Beauvoir's quote on the cover jacket (above) summarizes it all--"the human condition is at stake in this book."
For fun, here is my summary of the Introduction
Phenomoneology is about describing, not explaining or analyzing, neither constructing nor constituting. I am not a man or a consciousness, but the absolute source. My existence moves out and sustains my physical and social surroundings. I am in and toward the world and it is in the world that I know myself. I know about dreams and reality because I have an experience of the difference, so my problem is to make explicit my primordial knowledge of the "real, " the perception of the world as our idea of the truth. The world is what we perceive.
Beauty Kant demonstrated there is a unity of the imagination and the understanding, a unity of subjects prior to the object. As in beauty there is harmony between the sensible and the concept, between myself and another. The hidden art of the imagination gives rise to discovering of oneself and appreciating oneself, not just as the aesthetic which grounds the unity of consciousness, but also as knowledge.
With true/radical reflection we step back from the world (not withdraw from it) in order to see transcendences, revealing the world's strangeness and paradoxes.
Intellectualism is unaware of the problem of others, the world ( they have no "thisness"). The old Cogito devalues the perception of others and of the world. Unless I find myself situated in the world, I can not find others (inter-subjectivity) or the world. Intellectualism breaks with the world by a constituting consciousness rather than by being grasped directly.
Empiricism presents the absolute belief in the world as the totality of spatio-temporal events, and treats consciousness as a region of that world. Intellectualism and empricism are "naturalistic" positions which hide true perception.
All signification of language is measured by the experience we have of ourselves and this consciousness that we are. Consciousness is the actual presence of myself to myself prior to words, concepts and thematizations. Operative intentionality (qua Husserl) establishes the natural and pre-predicative unity of the world and of our life as seen in our desires, evaluations and landscape. It is the text prior to precise language. Because we are in the world, we are condemned to sense, and to acquire a name in history.
The analytic/empirical is the figure upon which the background of the phenomenal lies. Figure and background are thus the structures of consciousness, irreducible to qualities of consciousness.
There is a misconception of judgment as perception when it loses its constituting function and becomes an explanatory principle, position taking, knowing for me across all moments. False judgment reduces sensing to appearance, denying evidence of phenomena everywhere. To perceive is not to judge but to grasp a sense immanent in the sensible. Judgment is only true if it follows spontaneous organization and the particular configuration of the phenomena.
"I am a consciousness, a singular being who resides nowhere and can make itself present everywhere through intention. Everything that exists, exists as either thing or as consciousness, and there is no in between. The thing is in a place, but perception is nowhere, for if it were situated it could not make other things exist for itself." (p. 39, 2012)
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