Merleau-Ponty And Bergson: Bodies of Expression and Temporalities in the Flesh

Abstract

The attempt to address the question of difference, within and between bodies, becomes an important theme in Merleau-- Ponty's work at the time of The Visible and the Invisible.1 Already in the Phenomenology of Perception, there are indices pointing to singular bodies and unique styles of existence-but these are hidden by the general appeal of that text to the sameness of bodies, and the exchangeability of experiences.2 As the bearer of my zero-point of orientation in space, my body and the other's may represent exchangeable perspectives. But this symmetry breaks down when the body is seen as a temporality.3 This move begins in the Phenomenology with the study of the body's expressivity. As the body's expressive and melodic character is emphasized, Merleau-Ponty's picture of the body becomes one of a singular, fluid becoming-- converging in the later works with Bergson's account of duration. Drawing on Bergsonian ideas of duration and intuition, the later Merleau-Ponty will find resources to confront the question of difference. The Early Merleau-Ponty and the Body as Expression Rethinking the Temporality of the Lived Body The body's expressive powers are not restricted to so-called personal acts, acts of conscious will and choice. These powers can be seen in the body's sensory relation to the world-so that every sensation, every experience of color and every movement of the hand, expresses my whole existence as a singular becoming. In the chapter of the Phenomenology of Perception entitled "Le sentir," the lived body's experience of colors and of tones is explored in terms of the resonances and correspondences that the body feels when in contact with the sensible. According to Merleau-Ponty, "blue is that which [solicits] me to look in a certain way, that which allows my gaze to run over it in a specific manner" (PhP 210). Colors have a vital significance that my body lives in its own way." As do sounds: "within the musical note a 'micromelody' can be picked out and the interval heard is merely the final patterning of a certain tension felt throughout the body" (PhP 211). My body appears here as a particular tension or rhythm that responds to the colors seen and the tones heard, that replies to the sensible which is itself "a certain rhythm of existence" (PhP 213). Thus the lived body is a power [puissance] to synchronize with its environment, to "reverberate to all sounds, vibrate to all colours" (PhP, 236).5 This exploration of le sentir as resonance and rhythm is brought to light by a "radical reflection" according to Merleau-Ponty. In such reflection, "I must be particularly careful not to begin by defining the senses; I must instead resume contact with the sensory life [la sensorialitel which I live from within" (PhP, 219-20). This is then a different methodology from the one that takes its point of departure in the fully constituted body of "natural perception" (PhP, 225). There is a move in this chapter of the Phenomenology to explore sensation below the presumptive unities of perceiving subject and perceived world. And although Merleau-Ponty opts at the end of the chapter to return to "a natural attitude of vision" and a unified perception, the first part of "Le sentir" follows the route of sensations and "break[s] this total structuralization of vision" (PhP, 227). This radical reflection can be seen again in the painter's vision in L'a"et l'Esprit, and in the method of hyper-reflection presented in The Visible and the Invisible.6 In both cases we find it opposed to a kind of "profane" or natural vision that aims at recognition-that cuts the world up into solids which can be categorized and identified, which can be easily managed. The study of sensation tends to bracket this natural vision; it provides a different framework for conceiving the body's unity and its relation to the world and to others. This is the framework we are interested in exploring in this essay. What the above examples of resonances to colors and sounds show is the intertwining of sensing and sensible that characterizes le sentir for Merleau-Ponty. …