The Merleau-Ponty Dictionary

283 Pages·2013·13.877 MB·English

by  Donald A. Landes

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The Bloomsbury Philosophy Dictiol1aries offer clear and accessible
guides to the work of sorne of the more challenging thinkers in the
history of philosophy. A-Z entries provide clear definitions of key
terminology, synopses of key works, and details of each thinker's
major themes, ideas and philosophical influences. The Dictiol1aries
are the Ideal resource for anyone reading or studying these key
philosophers.
Titles available in the series:
The Derrida Dictionary, Simon Morgan Wortham
The Gadamer Dictionary, Chris Lawn and Niall Keane
The Hegel Dictionary, Glenn Alexander Magee
The Heidegger Dictionary, Daniel O. Dahlstrom
The Husserl Diètionary, Dermot Moran and Joseph Cohen
The Marx Dictionary, Ian Fraser and Lawrence Wilde
The Sartre Dictionary, Gary Cox
Forthcoming in the series:
The Deleuze and Guattari Dictionary, Eugene B. Young with Gary
Genosko and Janell Watson
The Kant Dictionary, Lucas Thorpe
The Nietzsche Dictionary, Douglas Burnham
The Wittgenstein Dictionary, Edmund Dain
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BI..OOMSBURY PHII..OSOPHY DICTIONARIES
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BLOOMSBURY
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First published 2013
© Donald A Landes, 2013
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or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available fram the British Library,
ISBN: HB: 978-1-4411-2195-0
PB 978-1-4411-7635-6
ePub: 978-1-4411-5892-5
ePDF: 978-1-4411-5200-8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN
Printed and bound in India
Abbreviations of primary works by Merleau-Ponty
cÎted in this dictionary vii
Introduction xi
Acknowledgments xv
Chronology: Merleau-Ponty's life and works 1
A-Z dictionary 9
Suggested books and edited volumes in English 251
Notes 255
Index 257
viii
MPAR The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader, ed. Galen
A. Johnson, trans. ed. Michael B. Smith (Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1996).
N Nature: Course Notes from the Collège de France, trans.
Robert Vallier (Evanston: Northwestern University Press,
2003).
NC Notes de cours (1959-1961), ed. Stéphanie Ménasé
(Paris: Gallimard, 1996).
P Parcours: 1935-1951, ed. Jacques Prunair (Lagrasse,
France: Éditions Verdier, 1997).
PHP Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Donald A. Landes
(New York: Routledge, 2012).
PNP "Philosophy and Non-Philosophy Since Hegel," trans.
Hugh J. Silverman, in Philosophy and Non-Philosophy
Since Merleau-Ponty, ed. Hugh J. Silverman, 9-83
(Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1988).
PRP The Primacy of Perception, ed. James M. Edie (Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1964).
PSY "Phenomenology and Psychoanalysis: Preface to
Hesnard's L'Œuvre de Freud," trans. Alden L. Fisher, in
Merleau-Ponty and Psychology, ed. Keith Hoeller, 67-72
(Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1993).
PW The Prose of the World, trans. John O'Neill (Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1973).
S Signs, trans. Richard C. McCleary (Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1964).
SB The Structure of Behavior, trans. Alden L. Fisher
(Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1963).
SNS Sense and Non-Sense, trans. Hubert L. Dreyfus and
Patricia A. Dreyfus (Evanston: Northwestern University
Press, 1964).
TD Texts and Dialogues: On Philosophy, Politics, and
Culture, ed. Hugh J. Silverman and James Barry, Jr.
(Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 1992).
ix
UBS The Incarnate Suhject: Malebranche, Biran, and Bergson
on the Union of the Body and Souf, trans. Paul B. Milan
(Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2001).
VI The Visible and the Invisible, trans. Alphonso Lingis
(Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968).
WP The World of Perception, trans. Oliver Davis (New York:
Routledge, 2002).

Maurice Merleau-Ponty
On 3 May 1961 the history of philosophy lost a voice that was
at the height of its philosophical expression, leaving behind an
incredible body of published work alongside the mere traces of
an emerging reflection that was to have simultaneously reshaped
the form and the content of philosophy itself. Maurice Merleau
Ponty (1908-61) was a rare thinker, capable of drawing together
various traditions and diverse approaches into a unique manner
of questioning that remained responsible to its past and to its
objects of study while creatively forging new directions through
an unmistakable style. Drawing from existentialism and phenom
enology, certainly, but also from empirical psychology, Gestalt
psychology, neurology, psychoanalysis, Marxism, structuralism,
sociology, political philosophy, the philosophy of history, and
advances in literature and painting, Merleau-Ponty's approach
took up not simply a set of solutions from these sources in order to
create a mere philosophical hodgepodge, but rather incorporated
what he understood to be their promise into a unified patchwork
in the direction of a genuine philosophical interrogation. On the
surface, then, Merleau-Ponty is perhaps an ideal candidate for a
philosophical dictionary that would identify aIl of these sources
and influences, and provide a record of aIl of his solutions.
Yet Merleau-Ponty himself resisted two dangers in approaching
the history of philosophy. He suggests that a constant vigilance
is required to avoid either a subjective reading, in which the
reader projects his or her own questions and answers across the
text, or an objective reading, in which the reader seeks to restore
xii
the exact thought of the philosopher in question. For Merleau
Ponty , the danger of an objective reading is in its assumption that
"the thought" of any philosopher is a "system of neatly defined
concepts, of arguments responding to perennial problems, and
of conclusions which permanently solve the problems" (HLP,
5). Reading a philosopher is an art. It requires a confrontation
or an encounter such that one gears into the open sense or the
unthought directions of his or her thought, taking it up into one's
own thought, which necessarily introduces something of oneself
into the reading, without succumbing to the opposite danger of
a subjective reading. For such a thinker, if a dictionary is to be
written it must provide not the abstract network of solid definitions
and synopses, but the tools for a responsible and creative reading.
Indeed, as he writes of what one might calI the open trajectory
of sense or of history: "eaeh creation alters, clarifies, deepens,
confirms, exalts, re-creates, or creates by anticipation aIl the
others" (MPAR, 149). With nearly 300 interconnecting entries in
this presentation of "Merleau-Ponty, A-Z," an extensive account
of his life and works, and an index which provides guidance for
concepts and topics woven throughout the individual entries, The
Merleau-Ponty Dictionary aims not to be the final word on "the"
meaning of Merleau-Ponty's thought, but rather a companion for
an open and responsible practic:e of reading, a practic:e in the style
of Merleau-Ponty.
Merleau-Ponty certainly earned his reputation as the philosopher
of the body, and the important emphasis on his return to lived
experienc:e is worth noting at the outset. In his earliest studies, he
pursued the notion of behavior precisely because it is "not a thing,
but neither is it an idea" (SB, 127). This statement is significant
in what it denies, for it captures his persistent attempt to dissolve
the schism between realism and idealism, or empiricism and intel
lectualism. For empiricism, the uni verse is to be explained through
mechanistic causality, and the body is taken to be one object
among others; for intellectualism, the uni verse must be explained
through reason, and the body is to be understood according to its
idea or transcendental organization under the dominion of a mind.
For Merleau-Ponty, each of these philosophical positions-pure
exteriority versus pure interiority-entails a pernicious pensée
de suruol, a thinking "from above" that mistakenly assures the
philosopher a God's-eye view upon that which is to be explained.