The Meontic and the Militant - University of Memphis

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Downloaded by [University of Memphis], [Bryan Smyth] at 07:39 14 December 2011 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES ogy’, that is, Fink’s ‘meta-understanding [...] of the “system” of phenomenological inquiry’ (2002, pp. 187–8). 2 These references to a meta-level understanding point to the critique of phenomenological method contained in Fink’s then-unpublished Sixth Cartesian Meditation (Bruzina, 2002: pp. 185–6) a text that Merleau-Ponty was able to read in 1942. 3 It has always been known that Merleau- Ponty had read this monograph, as he explicitly cited it three times in the Preface to Phenomenology of Perception, including on the very first page. But as it was not published until 1988, it was never established as a point of reference in Merleau-Ponty scholarship. Nonetheless, despite the short shrift that it has received in the literature, the impact that the Sixth Cartesian Meditation had on Merleau-Ponty’s thought at the time of writing Phenomenology of Perception was singularly important. 4 For his encounter with ‘the idea of a transcendental theory of method’ outlined in this text was the pivotal moment on the philosophical trajectory through which he overcame the methodological impasse with which The Structure of Behavior concluded, to arrive at the completed form of Phenomenology of Perception. Failure to take Fink’s work into account leaves a major lacuna in our understanding of Merleau-Ponty’s magnum opus – and by extension seriously infirms our understanding of the subsequent development of his thought overall. However, notwithstanding some important affinities to which it draws attention, there is something profoundly misleading in Bruzina’s claim that Phenomenology of Perception ‘incorporates’ or otherwise exhibits ‘remarkable continuity and coherence’ with the Sixth Cartesian Meditation. For this conceals what is innovative in Merleau-Ponty’s work. It is crucial to recognize that Merleau-Ponty’s decisive turn to Husserlian phenomenology was based on an original methodological reinterpretation, rather than on one appropriated from Fink. Indeed, this reinterpretation hinged on the decisive rejection of the main theses affirmed in the Sixth Cartesian Meditation. As comparative textual analysis will show, in virtue of Merleau-Ponty’s radically existential orientation, the affinities that do obtain between Phenomenology of Perception and the Sixth Cartesian Meditation are formal rather than substantive. The result is that Merleau-Ponty’s own meta-understanding of phenomenology – concerning, for example, the being of the phenomenologist, the nature of the ‘productivity’ that makes phenomenology possible, and (most importantly) the problem of methodological self-reference, i.e., the phenomenology of phenomenology that alone would legitimate the project philosophically – diverges dramatically from Fink’s position. 5 To be sure, Merleau-Ponty always had considerable respect for Fink as a philosopher. 6 And it may be the case that his subsequent philosophical work served to narrow the gap that Phenomenology of Perception opened up between them. But in order soundly to make this or, indeed, 670
Downloaded by [University of Memphis], [Bryan Smyth] at 07:39 14 December 2011 THE MEONTIC AND THE MILITANT any judgment about the development of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, it is imperative that we first come to terms with the precise nature of his initial response to the methodological issues raised by Fink’s Sixth Cartesian Meditation. 7 Such is what this paper proposes to do. To this end, I will first unpack Fink’s dense and technical text in terms of the problem of phenomenological self-reference (§1). Beginning with his account of the phenomenologist as a detached ‘onlooker’ [Zuschauer] that does not participate in the constitution of the world, I show how this leads to a problem of transcendental ‘illusion’ [Schein] that is only overcome by interpreting phenomenology as an ‘absolute science’ based on a speculative account of its productivity. I then reconstruct the essential outlines of Merleau-Ponty’s critical response (§2). 8 This will show that by foregrounding the corporeality of the phenomenologist, Merleau-Ponty’s view embeds phenomenology and its productivity within the very participation that Fink excludes. The result is that phenomenological self-reference is only achieved only through a positive embrace of transcendental illusion that necessarily involves an irreducible element of faith, something that is anathema to the account developed in the Sixth Cartesian Meditation. By way of conclusion (§3) I will briefly consider the divergence between Merleau-Ponty and Fink in terms of transcendental phenomenology’s relation to Kant – the question as to whether its proper aim is to complete or rather surpass the ‘Copernican Revolution’ (cf. Kersten 1995, Crowell 2001). Here I will suggest that whereas Fink’s speculative interpretation of phenomenology positions it as a project of theoretical reason designed to surpass the limitations of Kantian critique by obviating recourse to any sort of faith, Merleau-Ponty’s existential interpretation implicates phenomenology as a project of practical reason, and this in a way that positions it as an attempt – albeit a radical one – to complete the project of transcendental critique. 1. The Meontic: Fink and the Idea of Constructive Phenomenology This section provides an outline of the central methodological idea of the Sixth Cartesian Meditation. It does this by showing how the construal of the phenomenologist as a theoretical onlooker (§1.1) gives rise to a specific problem of transcendental illusion (§1.2) and how this requires for its resolution a speculative interpretation of phenomenology as the ‘absolute science’ of the constitution of worldly Being [Sein] in terms of processes obtaining in the extra-worldly dimension of ‘pre-Being’ [Vor-Sein] (§1.3). 9 1.1. The Phenomenological Onlooker Fink wrote the Sixth Cartesian Meditation as part of the project of systematically reworking the (five) Cartesian Meditations which Husserl had 671
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The Meontic and the Militant - University of Memphis

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