Work Of Merleau-Ponty Research Articles

Understanding, schizophrenia, and the limits of phenomenology

Karl Jaspers’ assertion of the un-understandability of schizophrenic psychosis, which rests on a division between what is psychologically understandable and what must be explained via natural causation, has faced numerous challenges from within phenomenological psychopathology. But despite significant developments in the phenomenology of schizophrenia, I suggest that this dichotomy, between psychological understandability and naturalistic explanation, is still present in some phenomenological research on schizophrenia today, even in work that explicitly critiques the limitations of empathic understanding and the purported incomprehensibility of schizophrenic delusions. Other theories of subjectivity, particularly those in the Lacanian tradition, offer one way to recognize the impossibility of understanding without turning to naturalistic explanation. These theories may encourage us to better integrate other key insights in phenomenology, most clearly articulated in the work of Merleau-Ponty, that look beyond “conscious” awareness—those that allow for a renewed appreciation of the un-understandable in schizophrenia, and indeed in all human experience.

Unlocking Language Competence: Challenges and Strategies of English Language Educators in the Post-Pandemic Landscape

This descriptive-qualitative study explores the challenges and strategies of English language educators, specifically Senior High School (SHS) teachers, in Iligan City in adapting to the post-pandemic educational landscape. This research employs a phenomenological approach, informed by the works of Merleau-Ponty and Van Manen, to delve into the lived experiences of educators and their efforts to enhance language competence in the context of English language instruction. Data were gathered through in-depth literature reviews, informal interviews, observations, and thematic analysis offering valuable insights into the challenges faced and methods employed to overcome them. The study reveals that educators in the Schools Division of Iligan City have shown resilience and adaptability by integrating technology, adopting flexible instructional approaches, and embracing professional development. These strategies have not only enhanced their language competence but also improved their interactions with students. Moreover, the research underscores the pivotal role of language competence in English language instruction and emphasizes the need for educators to embrace new pedagogical approaches. The findings contribute to the field of English language education, providing a nuanced understanding of post-pandemic teaching methods and highlighting the significance of language competence in education. The study calls for a continued focus on professional language development and adaptability to promote linguistic proficiency, cultural awareness, and effective communication in the post-pandemic era, underlining the dedication and resilience of educators in the field of English language instruction.

'When the visible body is no longer the seer': The phenomenology of perception and the clinical gaze in video consultations.

Video technology enabled professionals and patients to conduct consultations during the COVID-19 pandemic when in-person health care was minimised to reduce the spread of the virus. We present findings of a study of video-consulting through in-depth qualitative remote interviews with 40 health professionals, managers, support staff and 10 patients in health-care services across the UK from 2020 to 2021. Drawing on Foucault's concept of the clinical gaze, Merleau-Ponty's work on the phenomenology of perception and Ihde's postphenomenology we interpreted the ways in which remote consultations shaped patient-professional interactions, mediating and framing what was seen, revealed and known. We found that participating in video consultations not only involved creative adaption and adjustment to a virtual clinic but also changed how professionals and patients saw and were seen. We argue that this mode of consulting can transform boundaries and perceptions, alter aspects of clinical presence, knowledge and embodiment and thus both change and incorporate the clinical gaze.

Neither the Third Nor the Fourth Age: Viewing Old Age Through the Philosophical Lens of Ambiguity.

This paper argues that the philosophy of ambiguity, associated with Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Simone de Beauvoir, provides a helpful framework for understanding the complex and paradoxical nature of old age outside the dominant categories of the "third" and "fourth" ages. Building on philosophical literature in cultural gerontology including that focused on the "art of living" and other approaches that draw on existentialist thought, it suggests "ambiguity" as a theme that has been overlooked in such literature. The advantage of this approach is that it can accommodate contradictory elements and thus underpin an integrated approach to old age. At the same time, in distinguishing between ontological and social dimensions of ambiguity, the conceptual framework offers a new perspective on ageism that can help clarify the distinction between ageism as oppression and the negative aspects of deep old age itself. The paper is structured as follows. After making the case for the value and importance of "ambiguity" as a framework for viewing old age, I set out the key aspects of this philosophy as found in the work of Merleau-Ponty and particularly Beauvoir. I then apply this framework to a discussion of 2 literary memoirs of deep old age, by Diana Athill and Florida Scott-Maxwell, respectively. I argue that the picture of old age that emerges contrasts with the hegemonic discourses enframed by successful aging and frailed old age and offers the possibility not only of a true appreciation of old age but also of a more meaningful life course itself.

La dimensione cromatica nella riflessione di Gottfried Boehm. La differenza iconica, il colore e un confronto con la filosofia francese

Our paper aims at analyzing the relationship between the dimension of colour and the concept of iconic difference as it has been developed by the German philosopher Gottfried Boehm. In particular, we show how colours can contribute to the blossoming of iconic meaning in a way that cannot be fully expressed through language, thus giving access to a more authentic ontological truth of the object represented in the image. Moreover, we introduce a comparison between Boehm, Merleau-Ponty and Derrida. More specifically, we argue that Boehm’s understanding of the colour and of the concept of difference relies largely on the work of Merleau-Ponty and diverges for this reason with Derrida’s approach towards colours. Therefore, we conclude that any comparison between Boehm and Derrida should be undertaken prudently, if our goal is to appreciate the specific material features of images against the reduction of textual analysis.

Ontology and Attention: Addressing the Challenge of the Amoralist through Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology and Care Ethics

This paper addresses the persistent philosophical problem posed by the amoralist—one who eschews moral values—by drawing on complementary resources within phenomenology and care ethics. How is it that the amoralist can reject ethical injunctions that serve the general good and be unpersuaded by ethical intuitions that for most would require neither explanation nor justification? And more generally, what is the basis for ethical motivation? Why is it that we can care for others? What are the underpinning ontological structures that are able to support an ethics of care? To respond to these questions, I draw on the work of Merleau-Ponty, focusing specifically on his analyses of perceptual attention. What is the nature and quality of perceptual attention that underwrite our capacities or incapacities for care? I proceed in dialogue with a range of philosophers attuned to the compelling nature of care, some who have also drawn on Merleau-Ponty and others who have examined the roots of an ethics of care inspired or incited by other thinkers.

To Hear One’s Body. A Phenomenological Analysis of Body Awareness in Health and Illness

“You need to listen better to your body!” is a common prescription in contemporary health discourse. From a phenomenological perspective, we can say that the ability to hear your body implies body awareness. In this paper, I will provide a phenomenological analysis of the different ways in which the “audible body” can appear, and how this is related to health, drawing on the work of Merleau-Ponty, Shusterman, Leder, and Nancy. In Merleau-Ponty’s early work, so I explain, the “lived body” emerges as an “audible” body, but it is only faintly audible and only so on the surface. Moreover, we find no explicit clues in his work for the injunction to learn to listen to the audible body. Shusterman, on the other hand, claims that we should train and increase somatic attention, and thus better listen to our bodies in order to cure bad bodily habits such as poor bodily posture. Subsequently, I describe how Leder argues that phenomenological analyses of the body should not only involve the surface body and its motor-sensory capacities. They should also involve the recessive, inner body. According to him it is healthy to increase one’s capacity for introception in order to increase “inside insights.” In the final part of this paper, I explain, on the basis of Nancy’s work, that listening to one’s body might become unhealthy when this listening goes hand in hand with amplifying the strangeness of one’s own body.

Stuck on repeat: Why do we continue to ruminate?

An oft misattributed piece of folk-wisdom goes: “Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.” In many cases, we don’t just do things repeatedly but think over the same topics repeatedly. People who ruminate are not often diagnosed as insane—most of us ruminate at some point in our lives—but it is a common behaviour underlying both depression and anxiety (Nolen-Hoeksema in J Abnorm Psychol 109(3):504, 2000). If rumination is something we all do at some time, what is it about ruminative thought that makes it ‘sticky’ and difficult to stop for the worst sufferers? In order to answer this question, I will present a plausible account of how ruminative behaviour becomes entrenched to the point where sufferers of anxiety and depression simply cannot make meaning from the world except in terms of the kinds of behaviours, actions and thoughts they have become reliant on. I develop my account from Barrett’s theory of constructed emotion (2006, 2011, 2014) using the work of Merleau-Ponty (Phenomenology of perception, Taylor and Francis Group. (Online), ProQuest Ebook Central, 2012. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ed/detail.action?docID=1433878. Accessed 29 Dec 2020) in order to bridge the gap between the explicit thought we experience—an important part of the lived experience of rumination. To conclude, I will apply my account to Wu and Dunning’s (Rev General Psychol 22(1):25–35, 2018; Hypocognitive mind: How lack of conceptual knowledge confines what people see and remember, 2019. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/29ryz) theory of hypocognition to further illuminate the particular cognitive qualities that can be experienced by ruminators, i.e. a prohibited access to particular emotion concepts.

Phenomenology of Rhythm: The Role of Rhythm in Written Language


 
 
 Based on existential-phenomenological perspectives from Merleau-Ponty and Løgstrup, we examine the significance of rhythm for written language skills. Rhythm is both omnipresent and a difficult phenomenon
 to explore. Methodologically, the article presents phenomenological descriptions and exemplifications, not least a case study of a secondary school student with written language difficulties. Our intention is to illuminate connections between rhythmic perspectives in movement, speech, working memory and language as prerequisites for the acquisition of written language skills. We conclude that rhythm is an essential aspect of our bodily being, and based on the work of Merleau-Ponty, we are able to bring to light relationships between body, rhythm, and written language skills in ways that would not be possible from a natural scientific point of view. Inspired by Merleau-Ponty's analytical approach and the hermeneutic phenomenology of Ricoeur, we will combine an understanding perspective with both human scientific and natural scientific explanations, into a holistic interpretation. The article thus draws empirically on qualitative descriptions of rhythmic phenomena, and theoretically on perspectives from philosophy of language, developmental psychology and neuropsychology, but they are all interpreted in the light of existential-phenomenological ontology.
 
 

Phenomenological Variation and Intercultural Transformation: Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology and Abu-Lughod’s Ethnography in Dialogue

"This paper develops phenomenological resources for understanding the nature of intercultural understanding, drawing on the work of Merleau-Ponty in dialogue with feminist anthropologist Abu-Lughod. Part One criticizes Western framings of non-Western violence against women that render the experience of non-Western Others inaccessible. Part Two discusses how certain strains in Western feminism reinforce some of these problematic framings. Part Three offers a phenomenological account of our experience of other persons, and Part Four argues that intercultural understanding takes the form of a “variation” between one’s own and the other’s experience. Part Five explores the implications of this phenomenology of cross-cultural understanding for interpreting dynamic cultural transformations, and the politics of violence against women, in an interconnected and unequal world. Keywords: Maurice Merleau-Ponty; Lila Abu-Lughod; critical phenomenology; feminist anthropology; multiculturalism "

\u201cIt Happens, But I\u2019m Not There\u201d: On the Phenomenology of Childbirth

Phenomenologically grounded research on pregnancy is a thriving area of activity in feminist studies and related disciplines. But what has been largely omitted in this area of research is the experience of childbirth itself. This paper proposes a phenomenological analysis of childbirth inspired by the work of Merleau-Ponty. The paper proceeds from the conviction that the concept of anonymity can play a critical role in explicating the affective structure of childbirth. This is evident in at least two respects. First, the concept of anonymity gives structural specificity to the different levels of bodily existence at work in childbirth. Second, the concept of anonymity can play a powerful explanatory role in accounting for the sense of strangeness accompanying childbirth. To flesh these ideas out, I focus on two attributes of birth, sourced from first-person narratives of childbirth. The first aspect concerns the sense of leaving one’s body behind during childbirth while the second aspect concerns the sense of strangeness accompanying the first encounter with the baby upon successful delivery. I take both of these aspects of childbirth seriously, treating them as being instructive not only of the uniqueness of childbirth but also revealing something important about bodily life more generally. Accordingly, the paper unfolds in three stages. First, I will critically explore the concept of anonymity in Merleau-Ponty; second, I will apply this concept to childbirth; finally, I will provide an outline of how childbirth sheds light on the broader nature of bodily life.

Eyemaginary unity: a dialectic of visual studies

The late twentieth century visual turn established the study of visual culture as central to the humanities and social sciences. Yet there is no consensus over the scope of the field that has come to be known as visual studies. This article offers a dialectical account in response. It finds a precedent in two dialectical models that have been prominent in visual studies, namely those of Walter Benjamin and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It argues that the work of Merleau-Ponty offers the better model for a contemporary dialectic because it is not tied to a particular ideological position. Merleau-Ponty’s work can be used to ground a dialectic of visual culture which begins with the eye and has as its three main moments the life-world, representation, and technology. Each of these three moments is explored in turn in order to demonstrate that this is a genuine dialectic in the sense that the final stage returns to the initial position but leaves it thoroughly transformed. The advantage of this approach is that it yields, for the first time, an account of the study of visual culture that does not rely on ideological or methodological principles to explain the range of the field.

Review of Mauro Carbone, Philosophy-Screens: From Cinema to the Digital Revolution

In this text, my aim is to provide a reading of Mauro Carbone’s Philosophy Screens: From Cinema to the Digital Revolution in the context of his other writings. My claim is that in this most recent work, Carbone makes a decisive step from being an original interpreter of the work of Merleau-Ponty and Proust to making an original contribution to what I describe, following Merleau-Ponty and Carbone, the history of “a-philosophy”: an historical attempt to reverse the “official philosophy” that has been with us since at least Plato. This reversal is staged through a series of concepts, created by Carbone, that I take up here viz à viz Plato’s allegory of the cave: the archescreen, the sensible idea, the screen, and philosophy-cinema (a concept borrowed from Deleuze). Together, these concepts illustrate what I call, borrowing a phrase from Jean-Luc Nancy, a philosophical partance: for Carbone, the work of “philosophizing” should no longer be conceptualized in accordance with Platonic imagery of ascent, illumination, conversion, and importantly, grasping and seizing upon the είδη but as “departure”: allowing the objects of thought their transcendence, a liquidity by which they slip through our grasp.

‘Careful living’: Frederick Douglass’s phenomenology of embodied experience

ABSTRACTIn My Bondage and My Freedom Douglass wrote that, among the abolitionists, he ‘forg[o]t’ that his ‘skin was dark’ and his ‘hair crisped’. Few critics have paid much attention to this statement and those who have, have tended to read it figuratively. In this article, I draw on the work of Merleau-Ponty, Fanon, and Leder to develop a phenomenological reading that attends to descriptions of lived experience and therefore takes this statement literally, as a revelatory expression of racial embodiment. I argue that it forms part of Douglass’s analysis of how black men and women were made to experience their ‘dark’ skin in nineteenth century America, how this forced them into what he calls ‘careful living’, and how an alternative, resisting embodied persona might be expressed. Finally, I argue that reading phenomenologically, through the embodied experiences authors like Douglass describe, enables a shift in criticism, towards readings that fully attend to the complexity of lived experience.

Communities Versus Platforms: The Paradox in the Body of the Collaborative Economy

Communities and platforms pervade all aspects of the collaborative economy. Yet, they exist in apparent tension. The collaborative economy is grounded in communities. These are typically characterized by isonomic relations, in which the singularity of members finds its distinctiveness in being woven into mutual, collective endeavor. Yet, the collaborative economy also entails digital platforms organized through largely heteronomic relations in which employees and users are configured as isolate, useful, interchangeable, and flexible “units.” As such, communities and platforms are traditionally framed as separate from, and in contradiction to, one another. There is, it seems a paradox at the heart of the collaborative economy. Yet, inspired by the work of Merleau-Ponty, we argue the expression, embodiment, and eventfulness characterizing the collaborative economy show communities and platforms being constituted by one another. We conclude that the paradox, far from being a condition of opposition and dialectical tension requiring managed resolution, is a generative organizational process.

(Un)Healthy Systems: Merleau-Ponty, Dewey, and the Dynamic Equilibrium Between Self and Environment

ABSTRACT Against empiricist and rationalist prejudices concerning the nature of issues related to “mental health,” this article offers a phenomenological account of identity as developed in a meaningful system with the environment (Umwelt) or world (Welt). Drawing on the work of Merleau-Ponty and Dewey, I argue that behavioral and emotional health and illness must be understood in terms of the plasticity or rigidity, respectively, of the individual's responses in the face of new and threatening environmental demands. However, individual plasticity and rigidity are not given qualities of the individual but are themselves developed in healthy or unhealthy interpersonal environments. I discuss three cases of emotional and behavioral trouble in order to explore the manner in which unhealthy self-environment systems can undermine individuals' powers of adaptability and growth.

Dance as therapy: embodiment, kinesthetic empathy and the case of contact improvisation

Dance as a form of expression of the embodied consciousness has been a part of phenomenological considerations for some decades now, thanks to key works such as those by Sheets-Johnstone. However, the possible applications of dance and the phenomenological consideration of the consciousness of the dancing subject in treatments that are thought to refer to bodily ruptures, such as the ones we find when considering alimentary disorders, is yet an area rather unexplored. This is precisely the general topic and the first approach that I propose in this article from the consideration of notions such as embodiment, habit, and body image, notions that are imminently phenomenological taken from the works of Merleau-Ponty, and from the consideration of contact improvisation as a way to overcome the ruptures that become evident in the tactile bodily feeling of the subject with alimentary disorders.

What is Original in Merleau-Ponty’s View of the Phenomenological Reduction?

Despite the recent increase of interest in the work of Merleau-Ponty there is still a persistent tendency to overlook the uniqueness of the philosophical position he advances in Phenomenology of Perception. In this article I present a reading of Merleau-Ponty’s account of the phenomenological reduction that explains how it is original. I do this by contrasting his presentation of the reduction with that of the early Husserl, highlighting how his emphasis on the phenomenology of the ‘perceived world’ leads him to reject Husserl’s conception of phenomenology as a ‘philosophical science,’ and the Kantian language in which the this account is framed. I go on to critically discuss the interpretations of the reduction advanced by Stephen Priest and Joel Smith as examples of readings that fail to fully grasp Merleau-Ponty’s account of the ‘natural attitude’ as resting on the inherent objectivizing structure that is built into perception itself. The way that these authors misinterpret Merleau-Ponty helps to make maximally clear the profound philosophical significance that he places on the phenomenology of the ‘perceived world’.

Meaning making from life to language:The Semiotic Hierarchy and phenomenology

AbstractThe paper rethinks a proposal for a unified cognitive semiotic framework,The Semiotic Hierarchy,in explicitly phenomenological terms, following above all the work of Merleau-Ponty. The main changes to the earlier formulation of the theory are the following. First, the claim that a general concept of meaning can be understood as the value-based relationship between the subject and the world is shown to correspond to the most fundamental concept of phenomenology:intentionality, understood as “openness to the world.” Second, the rather strict nature of the original hierarchy of meaning levels made the model rather static and one-directional, thus resembling an old-fashionedscala naturae. Reformulating the relationship between the levels in terms of the dynamical notion ofFundierungavoids this pitfall. Third, the phenomenological analysis allows, somewhat paradoxically, both a greater number of levels (life, subjectivity, intersubjectivity, sign function, language) and less discrete borders between these. Fourth, there is an intimate relation between (levels and kinds of) intentionality and normativity, making the normativity of language a special case. Fifth, to each level of meaning corresponds a dialectics of spontaneity and sedimentation, with corresponding normative structures (e.g., habits, emotions, conventions, signs and grammar) both emerging from and constraining, but not determining, subject-world interactions. Sixth and finally, the analysis follows the basic phenomenological principle to examine the phenomena without theoretical preconceptions, and without premature explanations. This implies a focus on human experience, even when dealing with the “biological” level of meaning, with the possibility of extending the analysis to non-human subjects through empathy. The intention is that this phenomenologically interpreted version of the Semiotic Hierarchy may serve as a useful tool against any kind of meaning reductionism, whether biological, mental, social or linguistic.

Healing: Toward a practical definition and clinical understanding

Healing is included as one of the fundamental goals of medicine. It is a term frequently used in health care but often poorly defined and misunderstood. The purpose of this workshop is to address this problem and will be interactive and discussion driven. We will briefly present a 'working definition' of the concept which will include an outline of the 'realms' of healing work from the diagnostic process through to management and treatment. We will use a case based introduction as a way of demonstrating our understanding of what the healing process entails. We will offer a number of alternate definitions of the term and examine the phenomenology of “lived experience” of illness using the work of Merleau-Ponty, Toombs, Cavel and Cassell and others. Existential issues which lead to the “brokenness” experienced through illness and suffering will be explored. We will open and facilitate a discussion of aspects and methods of healing with the goal being a clear and, to some degree, operationalised understanding of the concept(s) which we hope will be clinically useful and demonstrate the path(s) to “wholeness”. Areas which might be explored in the workshop will include the phenomenology of illness and suffering, the use of the clinician/patient/family relationship as the healing vehicle, intersubjectivity and empathy, the importance of narrative, collaborative and multidisciplinary care, the need to combine objective, empirical (evidence based) knowledge and subjective first person (experiential) knowledge to understand the lived experience of suffering and illness and the methodology of Person Centered and whole person care.