I. DRAWING FROM MERLEAU-PONTY'S INSIGHTS ON THE AWAKENING OF CONSCIOUSNESSThe time has apparently come to revisit existing theories of mind, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty is once again the subject of intense interest, both from stern critics2 and from undiscerning admirers.3 In this context, it is important to provide an accurate and balanced analysis of his philosophy. My goal is therefore to highlight the significance of Merleau-Ponty's conception of flesh and its relevance for shaping the dynamic process that gives rise to a self and its conscious activity. In order to meet this overall goal, I will analyse in detail the three main stages of the creative process, taking MerleauPonty's reflections on the painter's experience provided in Eye and Mind as my starting point. In so doing, I intend first to show that, by following Merleau-Ponty's crucial intuition about the intertwining of vision and movement, movement and touch, we can shed light on the process responsible for the emergence of perceptual consciousness and its own way of thinking, a reflection between eye and mind that enriches them both. Second, I intend to explore further the generative intuition that inspired him in Eye and Mind to talk about the existence of a eye - an inner gaze - located within our body (flesh), which sees from the inside what is on the outside2 * 4 and which, like a third ear,''grasps messages from the outside through the noises they caused inside us.sIn return, this approach should bring to light that the arousal of consciousness, this shining eye allowing things hidden in the shadow to appear, is in some way conditional upon an expressive gesture which prolongs vision and leads back to it, and encompasses both the phatic dimension inherent to seeing and the active dimension inherent to painting or writing.My argument will unfold in three main stages. First, I will focus on the Merleau-Pontian notion of flesh, in order to explore the experience of bodily feeling (le sentir) that precedes the very emergence of a self in the midst of perceptual life. Second, I will analyze descriptions of the circle of artistic creation, provided by famous painters-such as Paul Klee and Paul Cezanne-in order to reach a better understanding of the dynamic process through which bodily selfhood occurs and brings about consciousness (awareness) in a continuous intertwining with the world that constantly nurtures the performance of its expressive gesture. Third, I will return to Merleau-Ponty's notion of flesh, this time grasping it in its practical form as a moving and expressive body, in order to achieve a more radical formulation of this same process.2. The Experience of Bodily Feeling (Le Sentir) that Precedes the Very Emergence of a Self in the Midst Of Perceptual LifeIn this section, I start by tackling the experience of bodily feeling (le sentir) that precedes the emergence of a self and its conscious activity, and which lies at the intersection between perception, sense experience and motion, a far more complex notion, insofar it encompasses both moving and being moved.In a brief passage in Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty gives us a remarkable description of this experience:As I contemplate the blue of the sky I am not set over against it as an acosmic subject; I do not possess it in thought, or spread out towards it some idea of blue such as might reveal the secret of it, I abandon myself to it and plunge into the mystery, it'thinks itself within me,' I am the sky itself as it is drawn together and unified, and as it begins to exist for itself; my consciousness is saturated with this limitless blue. But, it may be retorted, the sky is not mind and there is surely no sense in saying that it exists for itself.... So, if I wanted to render precisely the perceptual experience, I ought to say that one perceives in me, and not that I perceive. Every sensation carries within it the germ of a dream or depersonalization such as we experience in that quasi-stupor to which we are reduced when we really try to live at the level of sensation. …