Merleau-Ponty

Discussion du dernier livre de Jocelyn Benoist avec des textes originaux de Charles Travis, Markus Gabriel, Aude Bandini, Mathieu Marion, Jocelyn Benoist et moi-même.

Organisation et coordination: Maxime Doyon

https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/philoso/2018-v45-n1-philoso03795/

In my presentation, I will be interrogating phenomenologically, that is, experientially the perceptual, ethical and spiritual dimensions of the relation between darkness and brightness. I will connect this relation between darkness and brightness to the questions of Western ocularcentrism and of the Taoist nonocular wisdom. I will ask: What are the consequences of this Occidental ocularcentrism to ontology, epistemology, ethics, and spirituality as seeing is possible only in brightness and thus brightness is valued over darkness? What would happen if suddenly darkness would be valued as a possible source of wisdom? This kind of wisdom would be nonocular wisdom. What kind of consequences this kind of experiential darkness connected to the nonocular wisdom could have in relation to the ontological, epistemological, ethical and spiritual dimensions of our being-in-the-world? In order to interrogate these dimensions I will explore how do we experience the nonocular pitch dark night. For these purposes, I will use Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s descriptions from Phenomenology of Perception. The night, according to him, is the experience of “spatiality without things” and of “pure depth...without any distance from it to me.” The night abolishes any possibility of vision as, according to Merleau-Ponty, “to see is to have at a distance”. This means that “night is not an object”, but an atmosphere that surrounds, envelopes and penetrates us. I will connect these Merleau-Ponty's descriptions with Eugène Minkowski's account of the "dark space" which was essential influence for Merleau-Ponty. In opposition to the Western ocularcentrism and its valuation of brightness the Chinese Taoist philosophers value darkness as the source of wisdom. The atmospheric experience of darkness, according to Taoism, can be used for spiritual transformation as within darkness the mysterious nothing or emptiness (Merleau-Ponty’s spatiality without things) appears. Taoists say that this mysterious dark atmosphere could be experienced through the cultivation of breathing (in a nonocular manner). In my interpretation, Merleau-Ponty’s and Minkowski's descriptions of the night as pure depth can help us to understand the Taoist nonocular dark-wisdom.

Hubert L. Dreyfus, on What Computers Can’t Do (1972), became the most prominent voice against the representational approach of the early days of artificial intelligence. Using heideggerian philosophy, Dreyfus pointed out that the mere predication of objects is insufficient to reproduce the kind of non-representational existence of a being-in-the-world. The test of time revealed the relevance of Dreyfus’ critique. Thus, the article will lay out the arguments of Dreyfus through two later works, namely, the book Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time, Division I (1991) and the article Why Heideggerian Artificial Intelligence failed and how fixing it would require making it more Heideggerian (2007). The use of Dreyfus’ late work is justified because of the connection made between Heidegger and Walter Freeman, indicating an example of what a  heideggerian artificial intelligence could be against an representational one.

Mind sciences have undergone a decidedly "embodied" or "enactive" turn in the past two decades. In its original conception, put forward by Varela et al., this radical shift of perspective was depicted as a continuation of a research program founded by Merleau-Ponty, and was said to encompass two levels. On a theoretical level it consisted of a move away from the cerebrocentric, information-processing, and representational models of mind and cognition towards the corporeal, enactive, and world-involving models. On a (meta)epistemological and (meta)methodological level it argued for the need to expand the methodological array of mind sciences to include the disciplined study of lived experience, and it laid the foundations for a fruitful exchange between scientific and phenomenological investigations. However, the progressive popularization of the enactive-embodied narrative has made us witness the narrowing of its far-reaching scope, whereby changes on the theoretical level are being extricated from their broader philosophical framework and wedded to more traditional epistemologies and methodologies. In this paper I try to shed some critical light on some of these developments, focusing particularly on two neglected themes of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology that are highly relevant for contemporary enactive/embodied approaches: the unsurpasability of lived experience (cf. 'behaviorist fork') and the need to radically rethink the nature and dynamics of our reflective inquiries (cf. 'radical reflection').

L'intervento che segue necessita di una breve premessa metodologica. Si è scelto qui sviluppare una analisi preferendo, data la complessità del tema, la chiarezza concettuale alle ricostruzioni filologiche. Questo intervento esprime, da un lato, alcuni esiti di ricerche accademiche da me svolte in sede di Dottorato, delle quali qui riporto solo alcune considerazioni a “grandi linee” (i risultati globali della ricerca sono stati tematizzati nel mio elaborato finale con il necessario rigore scientifico); dall'altro, questo intervento ha la finalità didattica di chiarire alcuni concetti cardine dell'Ecosofia che, all'interno del laboratorio di didattica e ricerca ubi minor  presso l'Università di Bologna, sto tentando di tematizzare. Le analisi qui presentate devono essere dunque lette esclusivamente in relazione a tali premesse. Mi riservo di specificare in altra sede le connessioni filologiche nel rispetto degli standard scientifici.

„Wykład, który rozważa język jako informację i musi przy tym myśleć informację jako język, nazywa ów powracający stosunek kołem, mianowicie nieuniknionym, choć zarazem znaczącym. […] Koło ma sens, ponieważ kierunek i sposób krążenia określa sam język poprzez zachodzący w nim ruch ”, - powiada Heidegger w Drodze do języka, przedstawiając przemierzanie tej drogi jako szczególną, potrójną tautologię, czyli mówienie o Tym Samym, pozorowane na troistą również ekwiwokację, i zarazem nią będące: „Język jako język doprowadzić do języka” ; przedstawiając splot będący Jednem; ujmując samodefiniujący tu język jako paradoks – niemą artykulację, albowiem, wedle cytowanego przez Heideggera Novalisa, język, skupiony na sobie, „troszczy się on tylko o samego siebie”. Ani krzty informacji nie da się z niego wydobyć. Takiej, co najmniej, której nie dałoby się sprowadzić do paradoksu. Czyżby jałowego paradoksu? Jedno co najmniej z niego wynika. W owej mowie języka o sobie samym oraz przez siebie samego, jako o splocie i tautologii, tkwi i wydarza się coś, jawi się coś, czego możemy być pewni: ruch. Czy jest on przemianą i trwaniem języka, czy podążaniem ową drogą, li nią samą. Czy też, być może, nazwiemy go motywem jako rozwijaniem dowolnego wątku, zmierzaniem ku jakiemuś celowi czy jeno nieprzebywaniem w spoczynku kierowanym przez niejaki właściwy temu oto stanowi styl. Ruchu tego nie da się podważyć ani do niczego poza wymienionymi opcjami zredukować. Jest nim celowe lub, odwrotnie, spontaniczne motio. Jest to wątek, którego chciałbym się tu chwycić.
Ruch troszczącego się o siebie języka ujawnia się na różne sposoby: w toku mowy, w przepływie znaczeń lub w zamarciu (sic!) w milczeniu. W ten sam sposób wre w monologu, dwugłosie czy w dialogicznym nasłuchiwaniu. Wydarzony pomiędzy idiomatami li językami etnicznymi, nie opuszcza przestrzeni języka lub żywiołu językowości. Nie zaprzestaje ich łączenia i wciąż jest sobą nawet, gdy nie przenosi nic od jednego ku drugiemu w sposób sensowny, czyli gdy nie łączy ich poprzez przenoszone w nim sensy – od źródła do celu. Co więcej, niczego nie przenosząc, będąc złym przekładem, staje się w swej nieudolności szczególnie widoczny. Brak sensu, adekwatnej treści nie unieważnia tu języka. Ustawia natomiast wymarzoną do jego obserwacji scenerię. Nawet tam, gdzie, jak by się wydawało, do języka jest daleko.

In "Utopian Body" (1966), Michel Foucault presents a complex conception of the body informed by certain phenomenological ideas developed by Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It is a conception that is both paradoxical and unique, inasmuch as it is not found elsewhere in his oeuvre. The utopic body is both here and not here; in its utopic aspects, it always extends beyond its own conceived limits, but at the same time remains a sealed, unified, experiencing entity. In this essay, I will first demonstrate that Foucault's utopic body may be understood as closely related to Merleau-Ponty's appropriation of the lived body. Second, I will show that Merleau-Ponty's lived body and Foucault's utopic body can, together with Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's Body without Organs (BwO), collectively overcome the dichotomy between a purely utopic body (requiring no actual basis in the real) and the physical, objective body. I conclude by showing that whereas we (as embodied beings) live spatially in a real, concrete world, together , the utopic body-a healthy BwO-and the lived body can promote new, creative ways of pushing the limits of possible experience.

Parallax in James Joyce’s Ulysses. Parallax is a byword for rarity and astonishment in Ulysses. Parallax is pure relationality. It assigns to cosmic bodies their relative positions in a coordinate system. Despite its lowly Popular Science origins in middle-brow literature, parallax in Ulysses stands for the relativity of language—a.k.a. lambent nature in its rank profusion—and what is most astonishing, disconcerting and alluring about it is our inability to impose law and decorum upon it through any structural grammar or theory of relativity. Bloom, of course, associates this glamour and reserve (cf. Martin Heidegger’s Entzug, “withdrawal”) of what constantly surrounds us and flees when we pursue it with women.

https://epochemagazine.org/parallax-442b6db87724

Qu'est-ce qui existe ? Comment puis-je voir et savoir que je vois et sais ?
L'essentiel, comment peut-on le tracer ? Puisque je vois cette distinction subtile, ancienne et difficile entre l'immanence et la transcendance, -- ne suis-je pas au-delà ou en deçà ? Je peux parler du sujet préconceptuel, je dois le saisir, cela doit être une expérience, cela est.
NP

Avec la phénoménologie, la psychanalyse constitue l’autre point d’entrée dans l’œuvre de Maurice Merleau-Ponty qui demeure sans doute le seul philosophe français d’importance à avoir entretenu un dialogue ininterrompu avec la pensée freudienne. Merleau-Ponty n’adopte pas la perspective clinicienne et son point de vue sur la psychanalyse n’est pas toujours orthodoxe. C’est une lecture tantôt critique, tantôt intempestive, de la démarche freudienne a` laquelle il nous convie. Le nouveau défi consiste à soutenir que la phénoménologie husserlienne et la psychanalyse freudienne n’entretiennent qu’un minimum de contradictions, et a` la limite qu’elles abordent les mêmes domaines d’étude à travers une problématisation incessante de la conscience. Nous verrons comment le lexique merleau-pontien se développe au contact de la psychanalyse (pulsion, ambigüité, chiasma, investissement, culture–nature, etc.) et comment aussi la psychanalyse permet a` Merleau-Ponty de faire avancer ses thèses phénoménologiques (monde, autrui, corps propre, perception, chair, etc.). Pour ce faire, nous analyserons la percée des années 1940 (distinction entre pulsions et instincts), ainsi que les recherches des années d’enseignement à la Sorbonne (psychologie de l’enfant) et au Collège de France (psychanalyse de la nature).

The body is both the subject and object of intentionality: qua Leib, it experiences worldly things and qua Körper, it is experienced as a thing in the world. This phenomenological differentiation forms the basis for Helmuth Plessner’s anthropological theory of the mediated or eccentric nature of human embodiment, that is, simultaneously we both are a body and have a body. Here, I want to focus on the extent to which this double aspect of embodiment (qua Leib and Körper) relates to our experience of temporality. Indeed, to question, does this double bodily relation correspond to a twofold temporality of embodied intentionality? In the first part of this paper, I differentiate between the intentional temporality of being a body and the temporal experience of having a body . To further my argument, in the second part, I present examples of specific pathologies, as well as liminal cases of bodily experiences, wherein these temporal dimensions, which otherwise go hand-in-hand, become dissociated. Phenomenologically, I want to argue that Husserl’ s differentiation between Leib and Körper corresponds to two genetic forms of intentionality – operative and act (or object) intentionality
– and that these are, in turn, characterized by different temporalities. Anthropologically, I want to argue that having a body – what occurs as an inherent break to human embodiment–is the presupposition for the experience of a stable and object-like time. I will conclude that the double aspect of human embodiment and in particular the thematic experience of having a body enables both the experience of a past, which is remembered, and a future that is planned.

The purpose of this paper is to lay out the similarities between the philosophical projects of Patočka and Merleau-Ponty, with respect to the question of the “limits of phenomenology”. We suggest that both these authors propose two complementary strategies in their attempt of overcoming the Husserlian phenomenology. The first one consists in extending the field of phenomenology so as for it to be able to encompass phenomena either insufficiently explored or misinterpreted by the conceptuality that Husserl put forth; the second strategy, more ambitious, aims to overpass the very standpoint of phenomenology in favour of an ontological approach. We try to show that what profoundly motivates these attempts is a radical – and hence, ontological reinterpretation of the Lebenswelt.

The aim of the thesis is to explore whether the early phenomenological works of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty can be used to create a satisfactory phenomenological account of emotion, and if so what the major concepts of this account are.
Sartre, throughout all the works examined, describes a wide range of emotions, emotional situations and behaviours. He expresses the embodiment of human existence, which can then be applied to its affective dimension. He also examines the relation between the qualities of objects and being, how they have meaning for us, and how the passions relate to our decisions and choices. He formulates the phenomenological characteristics of emotion and affectivity. His fullest and most explicit attempt at this in Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions is flawed, mainly because of his theory of emotion as a magical transformation of the world
Merleau-Ponty shows limited interest in the affective aspect of our relationship to the world. In The Structure of Behaviour he describes the structure of existence and consciousness, which details the integration of the physical, mental and cultural. This can be used to explain the physiological aspects of emotions and affects and their groundedness in the lived experience of the body. This continues in Phenomenology of Perception. Although his main focus is perception, he examines sexuality as a privileged area of our affective life. He also explores the way that we valorise objects in the world and make decisions based on our individual ways of being.
An interesting feature in both authors is the stress on behaviour. Here we see the close relationship between behaviour and existentialism, in its concern with the ‘movement of existence’.
I have formulated a synthesis of the major points arising from the close reading of relevant passages from the works concerned. This provides a framework for a general phenomenological account of affectivity and emotion and a basis on which analyses of the experience of particular affects and emotions could be undertaken.

O artigo pretende indicar como as mudanças de estilo verificadas no processo de produção do cinema documentário desde seu surgimento apontam para certas problemáticas levantadas pela fenomenologia de Merleau-Ponty. Haja visto que as transformações do gênero cinematográfico se efetivaram no sentido de uma revisão da relação do diretor com os temas tratados no filme, ou com o mundo que se pretende representar.
A fenomenologia lança um olhar atento sob esta mesma relação, pois os objetos não são considerados separados da maneira como os percebemos, ou seja, mesmo a objetividade parte sempre de uma
apreensão subjetiva da realidade. Da mesma forma, as novas propostas de abordagens do documentário (performático), enfatizam uma certa fusão entre diretor (sujeito) e tema (objeto) como um potente
recurso expressivo.

The article confronts the MerleauPontyan analyses of the four features of the“body proper” in Phénoménologie de la Perception (I.2) with the original Husserlian consideration of the same issues in Ideen II (II.3). I examine their analyses of absolute permanency,double sensations, cenesthesis and kinesthesis,to determine the different meaning that the
“body proper” acquires for each author. It is thus observed that “localized sensations” do not playfor Merleau-Ponty —as they do for Husserl— the constitutive role of the body proper. This leadsto distinguish, following Husserl, two different senses of ownership. Whereas Husserl associates the “body proper” with a secondary sense
of ownership deriving from an originary sense of self, for Merleau-Ponty the most basic experience of myself and of ownership is lived by a
corporeal subject in perception and movement.