Conception of nature as foundation of a non-fundamental ontology: Merleau-Ponty between the "Nature lectures" and "The Visible and the Invisible"

Abstract

The aim of the present survey is to discuss Merleau-Ponty's description of our experience of the world in terms of nature (section 1) and its development in relation to a particular expression of nature, namely that of the living being (Section 2). This survey, which strictly refers to Merleau-Ponty's Nature lectures, will allow us to retrace the way in which Merleau-Ponty, addressing certain specific natural phenomena, carries out a description of our experience of the real. Particularly, we will discuss Merleau-Ponty's analysis of nature and the living being with the aim of eventually focusing on the results of his phenomenology of nature (Section 3) as the outline and anticipation of an ontology of reality which, although never completed because of Merleau-Ponty's premature death, finds in his projected work of The Visible and the Invisible the challenging expression of a 'negative philosophy.