Phenomenology of Perception

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The Phenomenology of Perception was the magnum opus of French phenomenological philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

Following explicitly from the work of Edmund Husserl, Merleau-Ponty's project is to reveal the phenomenological structure of perception. The central thesis of the book is what Merleau-Ponty later called the "primacy of perception." We are first perceiving the world, then we do philosophy. What is characteristic of his account of perception is the centrality that the body plays. We perceive the world through our bodies; we are embodied subjects, involved in existence.

His account of the body helps him undermine what had been a long standing conception of consciousness which hinges on the distinction between the for-itself (subject) and in-itself (object) which plays a central role in Sartre's philosophy. (One of his main targets was his colleague Sartre, who released "Being and Nothingness" shortly before the publication of Phenomenology of Perception in 1945.) The body stands between this fundamental distinction between subject and object, ambiguously existing as both.^[1]

Note 1) Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Trans: Colin Smith. Phenomenology of Perception (London: Routledge, 2005) [eg. pp. 408]

[edit] References

1. ^ Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Trans: Colin Smith. Phenomenology of Perception (London: Routledge, 2005) [eg. pp. 408]

[edit] External links

• Excerpts can be found at Google Books: Merlau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception.