Merleau-Ponty's Approach Research Articles

Body Transformations and their Phenomenological Hermeneutics: A Study of the Concealed Body Phenomenon in Pre-Islamic Arabic Poetry

This paper discusses the intertwined relationship between the two concepts of phenomenology as an interpretive philosophy for revealing phenomena that leads to the formation of a vision of the world; and phenomenological interpretation as concept as a method of intensive textual reading that deals with phenomena as part of both subject and object embedded in phenomenology. The researcher delves into the concept of phenomenological hermeneutics as a method to uncover the textual meanings in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry. The phenomenon of the body is selected as a sample studied to probe this existing entanglement. Merleau-Ponty's approach and its techniques is applied to tackle this phenomenon of concealed body. The paper attempts to define phenomenological hermeneutics; and examine how Merleau-Ponty's ideas present the body in phenomenological hermeneutics. The hermeneutics transformations which revealed the phenomenon of concealed body, and the techniques of its presence in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry are explored. The concealed body is investigated whether it is considered traveling through a successive poetic technique. The paper also seeks to present a view that covers the characteristics of the concealed body using the techniques of hermeneutics to explore its mysterious identity by presenting various Arabic poetry examples; in an attempt to present a critical phenomenological hermeneutic study that sheds light on the technique of intentional concealment in poetry.

Le tropisme philosophique de Milan Kundera : Le roman à la recherche de la définition perdue

The Philosophical Tropism of Milan Kundera: The Novel in Search of the lost Definition(Abstract ) The philosophical tropism of Milan Kundera is manifested in particular by his novels in search of lost definition. The creation and the redefinition of concepts in his novels aiming at elucidating the essence show his ambition to " make philosophy in the way of a novelist". We examine his processes in the invention of concepts and the definition of words, as well as the similarity between his works and phenomenology, particularly Merleau-Ponty's approach. Through the metaphoricity of language and the inseparability between definitions and characters in his novels, Kundera revives a missed rendezvous between philosophy and novel. The definition of concept is no longer the privilege of philosopher. By the tireless pursuit of defining "the indefinable", Kundera transforms the novel into a place of phenomenological description and a field of thought experimentation, despite his ambiguity about this rapprochement.

Why Phenomenology Doesn't Need Disjunctivism: Merleau-Ponty on Intentionality and Transcendence

Abstract Commentators have argued that disjunctivism, from a phenomenological perspective, is the most coherent response to certain skeptical concerns. They find two phenomenological beliefs in tension: that intentionality is transcendent and that perceptions and hallucinations have a similar intentional content. While not ruling out a disjunctivist phenomenology, I show that phenomenologists are not forced into disjunctivism in order to avoid skeptical problems posed by hallucination. Instead, Merleau-Ponty's approach to the horizonal structure of experience supports a novel nondisjunctivist solution: first, by distinguishing proximate from ultimate objects of experience; second, by showing how every experience “belongs” to the world.

Le tropisme philosophique de Milan Kundera : Le roman à la recherche de la définition perdue

The Philosophical Tropism of Milan Kundera: The Novel in Search of the lost Definition The philosophical tropism of Milan Kundera is manifested in particular by his novels in search of lost definition. The creation and the redefinition of concepts in his novels aiming at elucidating the essence show his ambition to " make philosophy in the way of a novelist". We examine his processes in the invention of concepts and the definition of words, as well as the similarity between his works and phenomenology, particularly Merleau-Ponty's approach. Through the metaphoricity of language and the inseparability between definitions and characters in his novels, Kundera revives a missed rendezvous between philosophy and novel. The definition of concept is no longer the privilege of philosopher. By the tireless pursuit of defining "the indefinable", Kundera transforms the novel into a place of phenomenological description and a field of thought experimentation, despite his ambiguity about this rapprochement.

CUCULANO

Cuculano, a vernacular term in the Cia-cia language of Buton, Indonesia, is based on the root cula (story) and is a mixed local genre. It does not fit within western categories of myth or fable and there is no such equivalent in Cia-cia. This hybrid nature is an opportunity to question western interpretations about such stories. The exploration of western categories reveals their fuzziness affecting the criterion of belief. Focusing on the question of transmission, I highlight the problems with the neo-Darwinian framework proposed by Boyd and Richerson (1985). I develop an alternative approach that is more phenomenological and ecological, inspired mainly by Merleau-Ponty's approach of learning as ‘co-naissance’ (1945). Within this perspective, cuculano can be considered as tools (what Vygotsky (1987) calls ‘signs’) for the reproduction of a perception; cuculano are actors in the process of transmission of a particular ‘being-in-the-world’.

Analytic and Transcendental Empiricism

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Bertrand Russell put forward the concept of an an approach which he held to eliminate Pythagoreanism from the principles of mathematics, and to combine empiricism with an interest the deductive parts of human knowledge,1 thus overcoming the limitations of both empiricism and rationalism which he saw to be at the heart of philosophy. Taking its support from atomistic scientific approaches, such as reflex psychology, Russell's analytic empiricism attempted to present a fundamentally atomistic view of both ontology and epistemology. In contrast to this form of empiricism, which was grounded for Russell a model of the nervous system derived from reflex psychology, Merleau-Ponty developed an ontology which had its foundations the work of Gestalt psychology. Following on from this, Deleuze took Merleau-Ponty 's approach further, reintroducing an explicit empiricist theme which was already present, if covered over Merleau-Ponty's work. The aim of this essay is show how, with the failure of the atomistic scientific models that supported Russell's analytic project, a move away from the modular, analytic ontology of Russell's empiricism becomes possible. Following this, Deleuze and Merleau-Ponty move from the atomistic approach to philosophy of Russell, where the world mirrors the structure of the proposition to a genetic transcendental approach to an empiricism built on a new conception of synthesis. I will conclude by showing how the empiricisms of Russell, MerleauPonty, and Deleuze are all the end transcendental empiricisms their different ways. Central to my approach will be the thesis put forward by Russell that in a logically correct symbolism there will always be a fundamental identity of structure between a fact and a symbol,2 or rather its more general correlate, that one's approach to the world must have some sort of commonality with the world itself. Russell's Analytic Empiricism After a detailed survey of the precursors of his tradition, Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy leads us to the position where philosophy, finally rid of the mysticisms3 of thinkers such as Bergson, is at last capable of producing theorems which, at least its own domain, resemble science.4 The lynch-pin of this new system is a reconfiguration of the role of mathematics within the system. According to Russell, previous empiricist systems grounded their account of rationality on the psychologistic principles of association and habit. If this is the case, however, analysis becomes problematic, as if mathematics rests on the psychological acts of the individual, mathematics itself then must find its justification the synthetic acts of the subject, leading to the veracity of logic being doubted. The origin of Russell's supersession of this dilemma is in the achievements of mathematicians who set to work to purge their subject of fallacies and slipshod reasoning.5 This involves the essential project of the reduction of mathematics to the field of logic. On Russell's interpretation, mathematics is an axiomatic-deductive system, and as such, sidesteps the limitations previously attributed to it by the empiricists as well as the pretensions of the rationalists. As Russell puts it, mathematical knowledge, it is true, is not obtained by induction from experience. ... In this sense, knowledge is still not empirical. But it is also not a priori knowledge about the world. It is, fact, merely verbal.6 It is important to note, however, that although philosophical problems may result from badly analyzed sentences, where a proper characterization of the underlying grammar would result the solution of a problem, this is not an attempt to show the dissolution of problems under proper analytical circumstances. Hence Russell would say, reference to the later Wittgenstein, philosophers from Thales onwards have tried to understand the world . …

Operative Intentionality: : Notes on Merleau-Ponty's Approach to Mental Activities That Are Not the Exclusive Product of the Conscious Mind

AbstractThis article is meant to give psychotherapists a glimpse of the clinical implications of Merleau-Ponty's approach to unconscious thought and insight. Freud found evidence of consciousness and intentionality in processes that were understood in terms of coincidence or biological automata. Phenomenology has demonstrated that intentionality is an attribute of the entire embodied subjectivity. Both approaches point to the fact that the sphere of lived intentions is much larger than that of conscious thought. The article includes clinical examples.