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http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctyseg/mponty.pdf

Phenomenology: Merleau-Ponty
Sebastian Gardner, UCL
sebastian.gardner@ucl.ac.uk

Lectures
1 Perception and the Critique of Objective Thought: Phenomenology 5 March
of Perception, Preface and Introduction
2 The Phenomenal Body: Phenomenology of Perception, Part One 12 March
3 Objectivity and the Other: Phenomenology of Perception, Part Two 19 March
4 The Cogito, Temporality, and Freedom: Phenomenology 26 March
of Perception, Part Three

Merleau-Ponty's texts

The set text for Merleau-Ponty is Phenomenology of Perception [PP], trans. Colin Smith (Routledge, 1962);
the revised edition (6th edn, 1974) incorporates amendments by Forest Williams to Smith's translation.
There is an analytical Table of Contents which Merleau-Ponty prepared after the book's publication, a
translation of which (by Daniel Guerrière) can be found in Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology
10, 1979, 65-9.
Ideally the work should be read in full, but essential sections are designated on the handout for each
lecture: these refer in turn to (i) the pagination of the earlier (1974) edition, (ii) the pagination of the
currently in print (2002) edition, and (iii) the section numbers of Merleau-Ponty's Table of Contents.
Other recommended writings of Merleau-Ponty's include his first work, The Structure of Behaviour,
trans. A. Fisher, esp. chs. 3-4; The Primacy of Perception, ed. J. Edie, pt. I; and The Visible and the Invisible
(posthumous), esp. ch. 2, 'Interrogation and dialectic' (this comprises Merleau-Ponty's detailed and explicit
critique of Sartre).
As an alternative to purchasing the Phenomenology, there is Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Basic Writings,
ed. Thomas Baldwin (London: Routledge, 2004), Part Three of which contains extensive selections from the
Phenomenology, corresponding largely to the sections that I have recommended reading, and which in any
case provides enough of the text for the purposes of this course. Also included in Baldwin's edition are
relevant (excerpts from) earlier and later writings, a helpful Editor's Introduction, and a topic-based guide to
Further Reading.

Commentary

For short introductions to Merleau-Ponty, see:

− T. Baldwin, Editor's Introduction to Merleau-Ponty, Basic Writings.
− T. Carmen and M. Hansen, Editors' Introduction to T. Carman and M. Hansen eds., The Cambridge
Companion to Merleau-Ponty.
− D. Moran, Introduction to Phenomenology, ch. 12.
− H. Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement, vol. 2, ch. 11.

The following commentaries are most strongly recommended:

− T. Carman and M. Hanson eds., The Cambridge Companion to Merleau-Ponty.
− M. C. Dillon, Merleau-Ponty's Ontology.
− M. Hammond, J. Howarth and R. Keat, Understanding Phenomenology, chs. 5-9, and Conclusion.
− M. Langer, Merleau-Ponty's 'Phenomenology of Perception'.
− C. Macann, Four Phenomenological Philosophers, ch. 4.
− E. Matthews, The Philosophy of Merleau-Ponty.
− S. Priest, Merleau-Ponty.

Further recommended commentary:

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− T. Baldwin and D. Bell, 'Phenomenology, solipsism and egocentric thought' (symposium), Aristotelian
Society Supplementary Volume 62, 1988, 27-60.
− E. G. Ballard, 'On cognition of the pre-cognitive', Philosophical Quarterly 11, 1961, 238-44.
− J. F. Bannan, 'Philosophical reflection and the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty', Review of
Metaphysics 8, 1954, 418-42.
− C. Barrett, 'Merleau-Ponty and the phenomenology of perception', in A. Griffiths ed., Contemporary
French Philosophy, Royal Institute of Philosophy, vol. 21.
− G. Daniels, 'Sartre and Merleau-Ponty: an existentialist quarrel', French Studies 24, 1970, 379-92.
− M. Dufrenne, 'Sartre and Merleau-Ponty', in H. Silverman and J. Eliston eds., Jean-Paul Sartre:
Contemporary Approaches to his Philosophy.
− B. Flynn, 'The question of ontology: Sartre and Merleau-Ponty', in G. Gillan ed., The Horizons of the
Flesh.
− G. Gillan ed., The Horizons of the Flesh: Critical Perspectives on the Thought of Merleau-Ponty.
− R. Herbenik, 'Merleau-Ponty and the primacy of perception', in G. Gillan ed., The Horizons of the Flesh.
− K. Hoeller ed., Merleau-Ponty and Psychology. [Includes two texts by Merleau-Ponty and critical
writings on him, some from a psychoanalytic viewpoint.]
− G. Johnson ed., The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader. In addition to commentary, Part 2 contains
Merleau-Ponty's three main essays on (pictorial) aesthetics.
− E. F. Kaelin, An Existentialist Aesthetic, chs. 7-8.
− T. Langan, Merleau-Ponty's Critique of Reason.
− M. Langer, 'Sartre and Merleau-Ponty: a reappraisal', in P.A. Schilpp ed., The Philosophy of Jean-Paul
Sartre.
− G. B. Madison, The Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty: A Search for the Limits of Consciousness.
− S. B. Mallin, Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy.
− E. Matthews, The Philosophy of Merleau-Ponty.
− P. Ricoeur, 'The question of the subject: the challenge of semiology', The Conflict of Interpretations, ch.
12.
− J. Schmidt, Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Between Phenomenology and Structuralism.
− C. Smith, 'The notion of the object in the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty', Philosophy 39, 1964, 110-
19.
− J. Stewart ed., The Debate Between Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. Contains in Part 7 writings by Sartre and
Merleau-Ponty (and Simone de Beavoir) relevant to their philosophical disagreements.
− C. Taylor, 'The validity of transcendental arguments', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 79, 1978-
79, 151-65.
− M. Whitford, Merleau-Ponty's Critique of Sartre's Philosophy, esp. chs. 1-2.
− M. Whitford, 'Merleau-Ponty's critique of Sartre's philosophy: an interpretative account', French Studies
33, 1979, 305-18.
− A. de Waelhens, 'A philosophy of the ambiguous', Introduction to M. Merleau-Ponty, The Structure of
Behaviour.

Reading. For a brief systematic summary of Phenomenology of Perception, see Macann. Langer's book
contains brief and clear statements of the import of each chapter of the work. Either Macann or Langer is
usefully read as a guide in parallel with your reading of the text itself. Hammond et al. provide clear
accounts of the central issues, in relation to Husserl and Sartre. The book by Matthews also provides
worthwhile basic coverage. For more detailed exegesis and analysis of Merleau-Ponty's thought, see Dillon,
Madison, Priest, the papers in Carman and Hanson's Cambridge Companion to Merleau-Ponty, and the other
writings listed for each lecture topic. To see how Merleau-Ponty may be read as providing a critique of
Sartre's philosophy, see the book by Whitford. The Main reading on the handout for each lecture gives
references to relevant sections from Phenomenology of Perception and to secondary literature. The Further
reading is intended for those who intend to follow up particular topics with a view to writing essays.

Essay questions. Essay questions are given on the handouts for the lectures. The questions asterixed are
ones that cover topics of central importance and I would recommend attempting these by way of preparation
for the exam. Note that many of the questions are fruitfully answered by making comparative reference to
Sartre and sometimes to Husserl and/or Heidegger.
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1 Perception and the Critique of Objective Thought: Phenomenology of Perception,

Preface and Introduction

Main reading
− Phenomenology of Perception, Preface and Introduction, 'Traditional prejudices and the return to
phenomena'. Essential sections:
2002 edition: pp. vii-xxiv, 3-14, 30-42, 60-72
1974 edition: pp. vii-xxi, 3-12, 26-36, 52-63
Table of Contents: pp. vii-xxi, and §§1-4, §§10-11, §§14-16.
− Secondary literature: M. Hammond et al, Understanding Phenomenology, ch. 5; or M. Langer, Merleau-
Ponty's 'Phenomenology of Perception', Introduction; or C. Macann, Four Phenomenological
Philosophers, pp. 161-70; or E. Matthews, The Philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, ch. 3.

Further reading
− Merleau-Ponty, The Structure of Behaviour, chs. 3-4.
− E. G. Ballard, 'On cognition of the pre-cognitive', Philosophical Quarterly 11, 1961, 238-44.
− J. F. Bannan, 'Philosophical reflection and the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty', Review of
Metaphysics 8, 1954, 418-42.
− M. C. Dillon, Merleau-Ponty's Ontology, pt. I, 'Antecedents and consequences'.
− R. Herbenik, 'Merleau-Ponty and the primacy of perception', in G. Gillan ed., The Horizons of the Flesh:
Critical Perspectives on the Thought of Merleau-Ponty.
− G. B. Madison, The Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, ch. 1.
− J. N. Mohanty, The Concept of Intentionality, pt. II, ch. 3, sect. C, 'Merleau-Ponty'.
− S. Priest, Merleau-Ponty, ch. 5.
− C. Smith, 'The notion of the object in the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty', Philosophy 39, 1964, 110-
19.
− C. Taylor, 'Merleau-Ponty and the epistemological picture', in T. Carman and M. Hansen eds., The
Cambridge Companion to Merleau-Ponty.
− T. Carman, 'Sensation, judgement, and the phenomenal field' , in T. Carman and M. Hansen eds., The
Cambridge Companion to Merleau-Ponty.
− S. Kelly, 'Seeing things in Merleau-Ponty', in T. Carman and M. Hansen eds., The Cambridge
Companion to Merleau-Ponty.
− H. Dreyfus, 'Merleau-Ponty and recent cognitive science', in T. Carman and M. Hansen eds., The
Cambridge Companion to Merleau-Ponty.

Essay question
− *What, according to Merleau-Ponty, is wrong with the attempt to understand perception in terms of the
concepts of either sensation and association, or attention and judgement? Are his criticisms fair?

The common presupposition of the theories attacked by Merleau-Ponty is objective thought, which is (roughly) the
mode of conceiving the world characteristic of natural science. Merleau-Ponty claims that there is in perception a level
of pre-objective consciousness (the 'lived', 'unreflected' consciousness) at which there is no distinction of subject and
object, and that from the pre-objective standpoint the world (the world as perceived) is essentially indeterminate. The
assumption that the world is composed of distinct, determinate objects is the assumption of objective thought (a
'prejudice' due to giving false priority to the standpoint of reflection). Merleau-Ponty differs from his predecessors in
holding that there is in perceptual consciousness an indissoluble unity of subject and object (a primordial link of the
subject with the world), and that consciousness is necessarily embodied and that its bodily incarnation determines its
total nature.
Theories committed to objective thought fall into groups, empiricist and intellectualist. Empiricism is associated
with realism: perception is conceived as a process of becoming aware of independent reality by assembling elements
given in experience. Intellectualism is associated with idealism, and conceives perception as constituting objects
through intellectual acts.

Critique of empiricism. The fundamental assumption of empiricist theories of perception is that 'the sensation is the
unit of experience'. Sensation is conceived as a purely qualitative element, and the subject as 'coinciding' with sensation
(without the mediation of thought). The occurrence of each sensation, and its qualitative nature, are independent of
anything else (atomism).
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Merleau-Ponty objects: (1) Experience gives us no reason to think that any such thing as sensation exists. What
we perceive is never purely qualitative. (Sartre, BN, p. 314: sensation is a 'pure fiction' which could not be the
foundation of a 'real contact with things' and 'does not allow us to conceive of an intentional structure of the mind'; it
belongs to a conception of 'subjectivity' which 'cannot get out of itself'.) The empiricist will reply that sensations are
not things that we experience but theoretical constructions. However: (2) Gestalt psychology shows that perception
exhibits the structure of figure and ground: objects of perception are perceived as 'standing out' against a ground, and
the ground as 'running on' behind the figure; the object belongs to the ground (PP, pp. 51, 60). Objects 'form a system
in which one cannot show itself without concealing others'; in normal vision 'I direct my gaze upon a sector of the
landscape, which comes to life and is disclosed, while the other objects recede into the periphery and become dormant,
while, however, not ceasing to be there'; to see is to 'enter a universe of beings which display themselves, and they
would not do this if they could not be hidden behind each another or behind me' (PP, p. 68). The figure-ground
(object-horizon) structure, and the existence of perspective, is a constitutive condition of there being a world for us.
Empiricist atomism is contradicted by the fact that perception is always of wholes; what the empiricist offers as the
'unit' of experience is the result of abstraction. (3) Empiricism cannot account for the subject's recognition of things
perceived (e.g. as circles or triangles). The empiricist posits blind associative causal mechanisms to account for
recognition. But these need to be guided by a consciousness already capable of meaningful perception if they are to
account for recognition. So they presuppose what they seek to explain.

Critique of intellectualism. Intellectualism attempts to identify the logical processes which give rise to knowledge of
the world, the rules that consciousness follows in constituting objects. It engages in analytical reflection.
Intellectualism corrects the empiricist view of perception (PP, p. 32) as arising out of merely causal processes by
claiming that the objects of perception are constituted by thought (thus construing perception as a rational process).
The central concepts for the intellectualist are attention and judgement.
Merleau-Ponty objects: (1) Attention. According to the intellectualist, attention discovers objects as intelligible
structures (PP, p. 27): 'If consciousness finds a geometrical circle in the circular form of a plate, it is because it [the
intellect] had already put the circle there.' For the intellectualist, there is nothing indeterminate in consciousness: 'the
indeterminate does not enter the definition of mind' (PP, p. 28), since '[c]onsciousness does not begin to exist until it
sets limits to an object'. Thus consciousness of objects does not involve any kind of 'passage from indistinctness to
clarity'. But we experience attention as a 'transformation of the mental field' (PP, p. 29): there is a 'passage from the
indeterminate to the determinate' (PP, p. 31). Attention 'brings to light' its object, which is created through the act of
attention (PP, p. 29). The intellectualist mistakes the result of the act of attention, a fully explicit object, for its
beginning. (2) Judgement. The intellectualist assimilates perception to judgement, a logical act. It is a mistake to equate
perception with judgement, as hallucination shows. Intellectualism's 'real sin' is to have 'taken as given the determinate
universe of science' and placed 'perceptual consciousness in the midst of a ready-made world' (PP, p. 47) (as if
perception were an instance of scientific theorising).

The shared assumptions of empiricism and intellectualism. Empiricism and intellectualism are not true opposites
(PP, p. 39); they share the following assumptions of objective thought. (1) Empiricism and intellectualism affirm that
there is a world 'perfectly explicit in itself' and accept the idea of 'absolute determinate being' (PP, pp. 40-1). They
presuppose the existence of this world in order to account for perception as a secondary and derivative phenomenon:
(i) the empiricist-realist takes the world to exist of itself; perception mediating our contact with it; (ii) the intellectualist-
idealist takes the world to exist by virtue of thought, perception merely retrieving what has already been put there by
the intellect. Merleau-Ponty holds that the world that is primordially presupposed is the perceived world. (Empiricism
and intellectualism 'dissolve the perceived world into a universe which is nothing but this very world cut off from its
constitutive origins', PP, p. 41.) (2) Empiricism and intellectualism affirm the 'absolute mutual exteriority' of parts of
the world (PP, p. 39): objects in the world are external to and independent from one another. Merleau-Ponty holds that
the elements of the perceived world have blurred boundaries and are internally connected; the internal connections
between perceived objects are neither logical nor causal but relations of expression and meaning. (3) Empiricism and
intellectualism refuse to allow indeterminacy into the world. Merleau-Ponty holds that indeterminacy is a real part of
the perceived world, as e.g. in the Müller-Lyer diagram (PP, p. 6): objective thought says that the two lines are really
of equal length but appear to be unequal; Merleau-Ponty holds that the lines are really neither of equal nor unequal
length; we encounter here 'the indeterminate as a positive phenomenon'. In the pre-objective world, there are
'contradictory notions' which 'jostle each other', i.e. ambiguity. (Objective thought assumes that in 'the world taken in
itself everything is determined'.
The lessons from the critique of objective thought are these. The notion of 'sense-experience' 'has become once
more a question for us' (PP, p. 52): the object of phenomenological investigation is the phenomenal field which is 'the
advent of being to consciousness' (PP, p. 61). The task of philosophy is descriptive rather than explanatory or
analytical: phenomenology has to 'revive perceptual experience' which has been 'buried under its own results' (PP, p.
63).
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2 The Phenomenal Body: Phenomenology of Perception, Part One

Main reading
− Phenomenology of Perception, pt. I. Essential sections:
2002 edition: pp. 77-83, 103-43, 158-77
1974 edition: pp. 67-72, 90-124, 137-53
Table of Contents: §§17, 23-32, 35-40.
− Secondary literature: M. Hammond et al, Understanding Phenomenology, ch. 6; or M. Langer, Merleau-
Ponty's 'Phenomenology of Perception', pt. I; or C. Macann, Four Phenomenological Philosophers, pp.
170-80; or E. Matthews, The Philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, ch. 4.

Further reading
− M. C. Dillon, Merleau-Ponty's Ontology, ch. 8, 'The lived body'.
− B. O'Shaughnessy, The Will, vol. 1, chs. 5 and 7; vol. 2, ch. 8.
− S. Priest, Merleau-Ponty, ch. 4, 6.
− M. Wrathall, 'Motives, reasons, and causes', in T. Carman and M. Hansen eds., The Cambridge
Companion to Merleau-Ponty.
− R. Shusterman, 'The silent, limping body of philosophy', in T. Carman and M. Hansen eds., The
Cambridge Companion to Merleau-Ponty.

Essay question
− *Discuss critically Merleau-Ponty's reasons for holding that my body not an object.

Consciousness is necessarily embodied and derives its nature from the body: (1) my body is not an object but pre-
objective; (2) the body is the primary bearer of intentionality and subject of perception. The body is that which makes
objects possible; it is the pre-objective origin of perception and the (perceived) world. (My body is 'the origin of the
object at the very centre of our experience', p. 71.)
Sartre claims in BN that the body is not being-in-itself: the body-as-subject is consciousness, and the body-as-
object comes into being only through the Other. (The body cannot therefore limit my freedom.) But if the body (as-
subject) 'is' consciousness, how can it be what allows consciousness to act on being-in-itself? Merleau-Ponty agrees
with Sartre that the body is not in-itself (Descartes), but rejects his reduction of the being of the body to that of
consciousness; the body, as the original form of subjectivity and intentionality, is neither a physical object and mere
vehicle for subjectivity (Descartes) nor a mere derivative of consciousness (Sartre).

Objective thought's conception of the body: Merleau-Ponty's critique. Merleau-Ponty centres his critique on the
pathological case of Schneider (pp. 103-4, pp. 113-14). Schneider can perform 'concrete movements' (e.g. light a lamp)
but not 'abstract' movements (e.g. 'extend your arm parallel to the floor') without watching his limbs; cannot describe
the position of his limbs when they are stationary; cannot tell whereabouts on his body he is being touched without
experimenting; can take hold of an object (including parts of his own body) on request but cannot point to it; cannot
visualise absent objects; exhibits 'psychological blindness' (objects, e.g. a pen, appear to him without their meanings).
Empiricism. The empiricist conceives the body as a causal mechanism, and bodily action as a causal sequence
of stimulus and response. The basic conception is always of function to variable. The empiricist might hypothesise that
in Schneider's case some visual disturbance related to vision is responsible for his impaired capacities for action, or that
they are due to the failure of his sense of touch to give him information about space (tactile sensations without spatial
dimension). Merleau-Ponty's criticism (pp. 114-20): If Schneider's 'tactile sensations' differ from those of a normal
subject, then visual and tactile sensations are not discrete; the 'content' of 'tactile sensations' must be considered in
terms of the unity of a person's behaviour as a whole and therefore in terms of meaning.
Intellectualism (pp. 120-30). The intellectualist replaces causality with rationality or intelligibility; the body is a
physical object distinguished from others by thought/representation; a bodily movement is a physical event generated
by thought containing a representation of the movement. There is a reason rather than a cause for Schneider's
disabilities: Schneider fails to cognise the objective spatial world and to stand in relation to it as a subject to an object.
Merleau-Ponty's criticism: Intellectualism imposes an absolute distinction between (i) bodily movement determined by
thought, (ii) bodily movement determined by neurophysiology and unaccompanied by consciousness (reflex); but
Schneider's grasping an object is surely consciousness-involving. Intellectualism reduces the living body to an
intrinsically meaningless object without consciousness.

Merleau-Ponty's conception of the body. The basic 'characteristics' of my body (ch. 2): 1. My body is always present
to me, a 'permanent' in experience, 'an object that does not leave me' (p. 90) (a 'transcendental' matter). 2. My body is
not given to me in objective space (p. 94): I move my body directly without relying on knowledge of my body as an
occupant of objective space. Classical psychology's 'kinaesthetic sensations' and 'body-image' are gratuitous myths, for
I have pre-objective awareness of the position of my body. 3. My body is not an object: I cannot have a perspective on
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my body (pp. 90-2); my body is the condition of my having a perspective on anything. Seeing my eyes in a mirror (or
touching one hand with the other) is not perceiving my body - the 'phenomenal body', 'lived body' (le corps vécu), 'the
body itself' or 'own body' (le corps propre). 'In so far as it sees or touches the world, my body can therefore neither be
seen nor touched'; to the extent that the body sees or touches, it is not itself visible or tangible. 4. My body is 'an
affective object' (p. 93), a locus of feeling (pain 'reveals itself as localised' and constitutes a 'pain-infested space').
The spatiality of the body (ch. 3). The outline of my body is not like that of other objects: the point where my
arm adjoins the world of objects is 'a frontier which ordinary spatial relations do not cross' (p. 98); objective space
stops at the boundary of my body. My body is 'not an assemblage of organs juxtaposed in space': there is a synthesis of
my body which precedes my consciousness of any of its parts (ch. 4). The unity of the body derives from a
'comprehensive bodily purpose': its spatiality is one of situation (ways of existing towards objects) rather than position.

Metaphysical implications. I am not aware of my body independently from the world: the presence of my body to me
is the presence of a world, that I can act on. (My body is a 'body in-the-world'.) My body is 'the third term, always
tacitly understood, in the figure-background structure' (p. 101) of perception: every perceived object is implicitly
related to what I can do. An objection: If objects in space must be related to my body, must not my body itself be
grasped as located in objective space? Merleau-Ponty's replies: Orientation in space presupposes a space more
primordial than objective space, for we could not move about in 'intelligible space' (space as object of the intellect,
geometrical space); objective space is thus derived from orientational space.
Since the world is not independent of perception, and perception is not independent of the body, the world is not
independent of the body: the perceived world is a manipulable world (p. 82); there is an internal connection between
the body and the perceived world; the objects of perception are tied by 'intentional threads' to the body; there is a
'subject-object' dialogue, in which the world 'speaks to him of himself' (p. 132); consciousness is subtended by an
'intentional arc', rather than a reflex circuit. What Schneider lacks cannot be localised in a particular sense modality: in
his case the dialogue of subject and object has broken down (the intentional arc has been ruptured) (p. 136).
Consciousness is characterised essentially not by the 'I think' but by the 'I can' (pp. 138-9): the body is the
primary bearer of intentionality. Objective thought mistakes my body - 'my point of view upon the world' - for 'one of
the objects of that world' (p. 70): it takes the body as constituted at the end of perception (the 'objective body') as 'the
reason [explanation] for all of the experiences of it' (p. 67) (it causes me to repress my awareness of my gaze and 'treat
my eyes as bits of matter'). Because the objects of perception are tied by intentional threads to the body, and the body is
pre-objective, the objects of perception must be pre-objective; therefore the world is pre-objective.

(Sexuality (ch. 5) is of fundamental importance not because there is an autonomous sexual instinct but because the
body is the incarnation of consciousness. Regarding language (ch. 6): words stand in the same relation to their
meanings as the body does to consciousness; the origin of language lies in bodily gestures; language cannot be
decomposed into external relations between meanings and symbols; the relation of a word to its meaning is internal and
expressive.)

3 Objectivity and the Other: Phenomenology of Perception, Part Two

Main reading
− Phenomenology of Perception, pt. II, 'The world as perceived'. Essential sections:
2002 edition: pp. 235-9, 283-96, 327-43, 348-54, 365-89, 398-402, 403-25
1974 edition: pp. 203-6, 243-54, 280-94, 299-304, 313-34, 341-5, 346-65
Table of Contents: §§55, 67-70, 80-3, 85, 87-92, 95, 97-104.
− Secondary literature: M. Hammond et al, Understanding Phenomenology, chs. 7-8, and Conclusion; or
M. Langer, Merleau-Ponty's 'Phenomenology of Perception', pt. II; or C. Macann, Four
Phenomenological Philosophers, pp. 180-92.

Further reading
− Merleau-Ponty, 'The child's relations with others', in The Primacy of Perception, esp. pp. 113-20.
− E. Matthews, The Philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, ch. 5.
− M. C. Dillon, Merleau-Ponty's Ontology, pt. II, ch. 1, 'The paradox of immanence and transcendence'.
− M. C. Dillon, Merleau-Ponty's Ontology, ch. 7, 'Intersubjectivity'.
− B. Flynn, 'The question of ontology: Sartre and Merleau-Ponty', in G. Gillan ed., The Horizons of the
Flesh: Critical Perspectives on the Thought of Merleau-Ponty.
− G. B. Madison, The Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, ch. 1.
− S. Priest, Merleau-Ponty, chs. 11-12.

Essay questions
− *What, on Merleau-Ponty's account, does objectivity consist in?
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− 'It is clear that Merleau-Ponty avoids realism; but not so clear that he avoids idealism.' Discuss.
− *Does Merleau-Ponty resolve the problem of other minds?

OBJECTIVITY: THE THING (pt. II, ch. 3). Merleau-Ponty must next take up the question: How does there come to
be a world of objects with determinate qualities? An account of objectivity is needed, i.e. of how there comes to be (i) a
single object of perception as well as manipulation, (ii) a single object of different senses, (ii) an object that can remain
identical throughout perception and manipulation. NB Merleau-Ponty's account of objectivity is not an account of
objects as conceived in objective thought ('des objets'): it is an account of objects at the pre-objective level, objects as
perceived ('des choses', things) - the objectivity of things is a precondition of objective thought.
A thing is provisionally definable as an 'inter-sensory entity', that which lies at the intersection of the different
senses. Things come to be perceived because there are constants in perception (constant size, shape, colour, weight
etc.). The constancy perceived in the thing cannot however be accounted for in terms of constancy in the contents of
experience, because experiences considered apart from things (i.e. as representations) fail to reveal anything constant:
1. Perception with bodily movement: The contents of experience are continually changing, but the object itself is
perceived as unchanging. 2. Constant colour: objects are perceived as having real colours, but no two colour
perceptions are ever strictly the same. (Empiricism hypothesises that one colour-perception is 'selected' as the real
colour. But why?) (Light: Empiricism holds that light is registered through sensation - but there is no such thing as
sensation of light; light disappears from perception in allowing things to reveal themselves.) 3. Constant shape:
empiricism hypothesises that the true shape of an object is arrived at by subtracting perspective. But perspectives
cannot be identified as discrete variables in perception. 4. Constant weight: empiricism hypothesises that the real
weight of an object is derived from tactile sensation; but perception of weight remains unchanged despite changes in
tactile sensation.
It must be concluded that the constants in perception which define things do not emerge from materials
'contained in consciousness'; the determinate qualities of the thing are ways in which it manifests itself and calls forth
specific bodily responses; the constants of perception are thus constants only in relation to my body (they define the
ways in which my body can behave towards things); the different senses translate into one another (I see the object as I
might touch it). What it is for a thing to be real is for it to coexist with my perceiving body; the thing is the correlate of
my body (the unity of the thing is correlated with the unity of my body). This carries a metaphysical implication:
because we are constantly in communication with the things we perceive, they cannot (pace Sartre) be identified with
being-in-itself; being-in-itself is a conception that belongs to objective thought.
Hallucination confirms these claims. What does hallucination consist in? Empiricism says it consists in non-
veridical sense experience, but this is contradicted by clinical data. Intellectualism says it consists in erroneous
judgement, but this judgement is inexplicable in intellectualist terms. Hallucination cannot therefore be reduced to
either sense-experience or judgement. The fact that hallucination can take over perception's function of positing
objects shows that perception too cannot be reduced to either sense-experience or judgement, and that it is not based
on evidence and not a rational process: perceptual faith 'grounds' our belief in an external world.
So far, Merleau-Ponty's account of objectivity distinguishes him from the realist. The second part of his
account, which distinguishes his position from idealism, centres on the claim that things contain a core element which
is non-human and makes them stand apart from our perception of them, giving the perceived world its otherness and
distinctness from us. (This aspect of the world gives rise to Sartre's conception of being-in-itself; Sartre fails to
recognise that the world of the in-itself is at the same time a world for-us.) The non-human otherness of things consists
in their inexhaustibility: things transcend our perceptual consciousness in so far as they project further horizons of
perception (in contrast with objects of imagination). The world is perceptually open in an indefinite way. That the
world should be perceptually inexhaustible is a mystery, but not in the sense of a problem that objective thought might
solve (it is necessary that the world should not be perceptually exhaustible).
Merleau-Ponty seems to be saying that things are both immanent in and transcend consciousness - apparently
reproducing the contradiction of realism and idealism. His solution is that there is only a contradiction here if we
attempt to think of things from the point of view of being rather than that of time: from the standpoint of the perceiving
subject immersed in time we can understand how things have both dimensions. Theoretical contradictions are therefore
explicable in terms of the (ineliminable and brute; describable but unanalysable) ambiguities inherent in the pre-
objective realm; reflection is forced to concede its own derivation from pre-objective consciousness. In this way
Merleau-Ponty tries to get beyond the impasse of realism and idealism.

SELF AND OTHER (pt. II, ch. 4). How does the world also come to contain others, and a cultural or social world?
The cultural world (tools and artefacts) refers to the human order in general but not to any particular human subject.
We should not however conceptualise this in Heidegger's terms: the perceiving subject grasps things in the first person
and what needs to be explained is the transition from the 'I' to 'one' ('on', 'man'). We should instead begin with the
body: if I cannot perceive bodies as manifesting intentionality, then nothing else in the world will do so for me. There
is an apparent paradox in the idea of a 'consciousness seen from the outside' which is insoluble from the point of view
of objective thought, for which there are only two kinds of being - mind and matter, being-for-itself and being-in-itself.
(Merleau-Ponty thus rejects Sartre's solution: even if Sartre is right that my cogito establishes a relation of being to
others, it is inexplicable for Sartre how I actually perceive others in their bodies.) The pre-objective level provides the
correct solution: here there is no distinction between being-in-itself and being-for-itself. Here there is an impersonal
 8
field in which my bodily movements and those of others have the same status: there is no sense in which the world is
mine rather than yours; the perceived world is 'in a state of neutrality', 'undivided' between myself and the other. (This
should not be confused with the argument from analogy: I do not reason to the conclusion that my body and yours are
on a par by noting objective similarities between them.) But this is not enough to solve the problem of the existence of
others. The impersonal level is pre-personal or anonymous: it shows that it is possible for bodies to perceive one
another. It explains how there can be another living being for me but not how there can be another human being
(human being is personal: each human being can perform the cogito and differentiate itself as an 'I', a subject given to
itself). Once a plurality of personal consciousnesses has emerged from the pre-personal field, we are back with the
original difficulty of understanding how one 'I' can grasp another. The difficulties of objective thought when faced
with this problem are genuine: there is 'a solipsism rooted in lived experience' which is 'quite insurmountable'. Is
Merleau-Ponty then in no better a position than objective thought? The notion of pre-objective consciousness of the
other nevertheless makes all the difference, because it shows how it is possible for one bodily consciousness to
perceive another, as objective thought cannot. Thus we may say that 'subjectivity is intersubjectivity': the perceived
world is necessarily an intersubjective world (like Husserl's Lebenswelt). (The process of mutual objectification which
Sartre regards as the essence of interpersonal relations appears quite different: the gaze in which one for-itself
objectifies another appears as a mere refusal to communicate, on Merleau-Ponty's account. It is not, as Sartre believes,
metaphysically necessary.)

4 The Cogito, Temporality, and Freedom: Phenomenology of Perception, Part Three

Main reading
− Phenomenology of Perception, pt. III, 'Being-for-itself and being-in-the-world'. Essential sections:
2002 edition: pp. 429-39, 444-6, 457-9, 489-91, 504-30
1974 edition: pp. 369-77, 382-3, 392-5, 398-415, 421-2, 434-56
Table of Contents: §§105-7, 110, 113, 115-20, 123, 129-39.
− Secondary literature: M. Hammond et al, Understanding Phenomenology, ch. 9; or M. Langer, Merleau-
Ponty's 'Phenomenology of Perception', pt. III; or C. Macann, Four Phenomenological Philosophers,
pp. 193-200.

Further reading
− G.B. Madison, The Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, ch. 5.
− S. Priest, Merleau-Ponty, chs. 7, 8, 9.

Essay questions
− What does Merleau-Ponty make of Descartes' cogito?
− 'We must understand time as the subject and the subject as time.' Elucidate this claim of Merleau-
Ponty's.
− 'There is, therefore, never determinism and never absolute choice.' Does Merleau-Ponty solve the
problem of human freedom?

THE COGITO
Merleau-Ponty opposes the Cartesian attempt to escape from time and take up a standpoint of pure thought, from which
'unconditional' and 'eternal truths' are accessible. The path of Cartesian thought runs as follows. My immediate
consciousness of being situated in the world leads to a naive realism asserting 'an actual transcendence and the
existence in itself of the world'. Because this cannot justify itself, the traditional problem of epistemology arises and
explanations of knowledge of external world are sought. The attempts of empiricism and realism in general fail, and the
idea of a subject constituting world (a transcendental subject, as in the idealism of Kant and Husserl) arises. This
intellectualism conceives the subject as outside time: 'The Cartesian doctrine of the cogito was therefore bound to lead
logically to the assertion of the timelessness of mind [...] eternity [...] becomes the very essence of subjectivity.' This
entails the identification of the 'I' with God, and solipsism.
On Merleau-Ponty's account, the Cartesian separation of thought (I think I see O: certain) from perception of
being (my seeing O: doubtful) is false: perception and the thing perceived belong together; in perception I am certain
of things. Perception allows for the possibility of error, but this does not warrant the separation of perceptual state from
things perceived, because the possibility of error is bound up with the openness of the world, and there is in any case
no privileged field of facts (regarding my mental states) of which I can be certain: emotional states and commitments
e.g. are not transparent (ambiguity arises). The certainty attaching to the cogito should thus be understood in terms of
action: I am certain of my existence because I perform the acts of perceiving, reflecting etc. 'I think' and 'I am' are thus
equivalent, because my thinking is integrated into the process of active transcendence in which my existence consists.
Truth is to be modelled on perception: all truth is experienced, and the experience of truth is of a kind with
perception (an act of recognition or grasping). The truths we grasp do not exist independently of our perception of
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them; absolute truth or evidence free from any presupposition would require a non-temporal subjectivity, and for such
a subject there could not be a world. This anti-Cartesian reconception of the cogito restores to it a 'temporal thickness'.
The 'I' does not reduce to a series of states of consciousness: a Self lies behind all particular thoughts; it
constitutes my thoughts in general but cannot be grasped in any particular thought (it is 'indeclinable'). What sort of a
thing is it, that is always present but can never become an object? Descartes proves only the verbal cogito - the
impersonal formula, 'One thinks, therefore one is' - but what he meant to communicate is the tacit cogito (silent cogito,
unspoken cogito): 'myself experienced by myself', 'the presence of oneself to oneself'. This tacit cogito is withheld from
objective thought, and philosophy can do no more than retrieve it.

TEMPORALITY. Objective thought cannot grasp time. It first tries to identify time with something objective: (1)
Time as a dimension of reality conceived as a 'spatio-temporal totality'. But this eliminates change and therefore time
from the world: 'The snow is melting' reduces to a juxtaposition of states without movement or direction. (2) Time as
something added on to a world complete in itself, a series of instances of 'now'. But this fails to capture the
transformation of what will be into what has been, the movement from future to past. The unity of past-present-future
is primary; the notion of a 'temporal instant' is merely an abstraction. So, for there to be time, there must be subjectivity:
time is ideal. Objective thought now attempts to conceptualise time as something subjective: (3) Time as a
psychological phenomenon, as in the empiricist hypothesis of memory-traces. But these cannot generate awareness of
time: (i) traces can refer me to the past only if I already have awareness of time; (ii) experience cannot produce
consciousness of the future.
On Merleau-Ponty's account, the subject introduces time into the world. How is it possible for it to do so? The
criticisms of objective thought show that (i) the subject cannot be in time in the same way that things are in time, (ii)
we cannot reduce time to a 'datum of consciousness'. So time is neither objective nor subjective. We must say that
'consciousness deploys or constitutes time': 'it is of the essence of time to be in process of self-production, and not to
be; never, that is, to be completely constituted'; time must consist in a process of constituting but must not be a
constituted object; the synthesis which constitutes time must be continually undertaken afresh by the subject; the three
dimensions of time must comprise one single phenomenon (time is 'one single movement' of 'transition', 'running-off'
or 'flight'): time has no segments; it is 'the perpetual reiteration of the sequence of past, present and future'. It follows
that time must be understood primarily in terms of the present (vs Heidegger) - 'Past and future ... exist in the present' -
and that the passage of time must be something that the subject effects rather than something that exists for the subject.
So we must identify subjectivity and time: 'We must understand time as the subject and the subject as time.'

FREEDOM. Phenomenology and the critique of objective thought entail a rejection of the grounds familiarly
advanced by empiricists for qualifying or denying human freedom: (i) no causal relations can obtain between the
subject (body) and the world, (ii) the subject is not a thing, (iii) it is unintelligible to suppose that some of my actions
are free and others not, or that actions can be partly free. From this Sartre concludes that nothing can set limits to
freedom except freedom itself (this is the intellectualist antithesis to the empiricist thesis). Sartre is right, according to
Merleau-Ponty, that the significances of things do not derive from things considered in themselves; but Sartre takes this
to mean that we freely choose the significances of things. Does rejecting empiricism's conception of causality in fact
force us to accept Sartre's assertion of absolute freedom?
On Merleau-Ponty's account, the significances of things are not all chosen: there is a level of 'spontaneous
evaluation', as exemplified by the pairs formed by the dots .. .. .. .. The bestowal of significance on things at the
foundation of consciousness is thus not personal but anonymous - the self that groups the dots in pairs is not
individualised but merely a perceiving human body as such. At this pre-objective level, where significances are first
established, it is impossible to say whether I confer meaning on things or receive it from them. The same holds for our
personal characteristics and socio-historical identities: there is for each of us a sedimentation of consciousness, a layer
of accrued significances stretching into the past and pointing us in some particular direction in the future. Freedom is
thus essentially conditioned: the conditions on freedom, and freedom itself, require and create one another. Freedom
may be ambiguous: it may not be possible to determine what is 'the share contributed by the situation' and what is 'the
share contributed by freedom'. Because at the pre-personal (anonymous) level, being-for-myself is always at the same
time being-for-others and vice versa, freedom cannot be isolated from intersubjectivity, pace Sartre. Because freedom
exists in a world which is already partly constituted and cannot be made wholly explicit in the way required for
Sartreian freedom, we are involved in it as in an 'inextricable tangle': there is 'never determinism' and 'never absolute
choice'.

Criticism of Merleau-Ponty. To get some sort of critical perspective on Merleau-Ponty, see M. Langer,
Merleau-Ponty's 'Phenomenology of Perception', Conclusion, and M. Hammond et al, Understanding
Phenomenology, Conclusion. Merleau-Ponty himself criticised the Phenomenology in his later writings: see
The Visible and the Invisible.