Maurice Merleau-Ponty: The World of Perception - Timothy R. Quigley

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consider freedom, socialism, democracy, reconstruction, renaissance,union rights. The most widely divergent of today’slargest political parties have all at some time claimed each ofthese for their own. And this is not a ruse on the part of theirleaders: the ruse lies in the things themselves. In one sense itis true that there is no sympathy for socialism in America andthat, if socialism involves or implies radical reform of relationsof property ownership, then there is no chancewhatsoever of its being able to settle under the aegis of thatcountry; rather, subject to certain conditions, it can drawsupport from the Soviet side. Yet it is also true that the socioeconomicsystem which operates in the USSR – with itsextreme social differences and its use of forced labour – neitherconforms to our understanding of what a socialistregime is nor could develop, of its own accord, in order to soconform. Lastly, it is true that a form of socialism which didnot seek support from beyond French national borders wouldbe impossible and, therefore, would lack human meaning. Wetruly are in what Hegel called a diplomatic situation, or inother words a situation in which words have (at least) two differentmeanings and things do not allow themselves to benamed by a single word.Yet if ambiguity and incompletion are indeed written intothe very fabric of our collective existence rather than just the109
works of intellectuals, then to seek the restoration of reason(in the sense in which one speaks of restoration in the contextof the regime of 1815), would be a derisory response. We canand must analyse the ambiguities of our time and strive toplot a course through them which we can follow truthfullyand in all conscience. But we know too much about therationalism of our fathers to simply readopt it wholesale. Weknow, for example, that liberal regimes should not be taken attheir word, that they may well have equality and fraternity astheir motto without this being reflected in their actions; weknow that noble ideologies can sometimes be convenientexcuses. Moreover, we know that in order to create equality, itis not enough merely to transfer ownership of the means ofproduction to the state. Thus neither our examination ofsocialism nor our analysis of liberalism can be free of reservationsand limitations and we shall remain in this precariousposition for as long as the course of events and human consciousnesscontinue to offer no possibility of moving beyondthese two ambiguous systems. To decide the matter from onhigh by opting for one of the two, on the pretext that reasoncan get to the bottom of things, would be to show that wecare less about reason as it operates – reason in action – thanthe spectre of a reason which hides its confusion under aperemptory tone. To love reason as Julien Benda does – toclassical world, modern world
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First published in French as Causer
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ForewordThe seven lectures collecte
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are preceded by a number. We have e
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draws and the anxieties which he ar
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shortly before the war. This second
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After his death Merleau-Ponty’s r
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empiricism is not of this kind. Thi
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The central theme of Merleau-Ponty
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acknowledgement of its special stat
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world of perception can be dismisse
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When Merleau-Ponty says that scienc
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Florentine Renaissance, or, in a Fr
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photograph in which the feet look a
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intrinsic properties which explain
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which our own life has been disturb
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only contingently connected to a ph
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imagining that our dependence upon
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Merleau-Ponty now extends this aest
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etter conception of reason (e.g. di
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The World of Perception
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The world of perception, or in othe
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explain the illusions of long- and
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provide all the answers at a time w
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exercise of a pure and unsituated i
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It has often been said that modern
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which effect certain changes in the
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along lines running from the painte
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In the footsteps of science and pai
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LECTURE 3Exploring the World of Per
Page 71 and 72: worlds of sight, smell, touch and s
Page 73 and 74: touch. 2 To say that honey is visco
Page 75 and 76: complexes. This is what Cézanne me
Page 77 and 78: us and above all in the found objec
Page 80 and 81: In the first three lectures, we arg
Page 82 and 83: children and the sick was held back
Page 84 and 85: person must remain open to these ab
Page 86 and 87: flow from the centre of the ‘body
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Page 92 and 93: Thus far we have tried to look at s
Page 94 and 95: haunts a body and we seem to see a
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Page 100 and 101: which makes us crave their assent o
Page 102: LECTURE 6Art and the World of Perce
Page 105 and 106: world once more, as if in an exchan
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Page 109 and 110: do explain why, hitherto, there hav
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Page 114: LECTURE 7Classical World, Modern Wo
Page 117 and 118: In modernity, we have a representat
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Page 123 and 124: with a feeling of completion or per
Page 126 and 127: NotesFOREWORD1 Merleau-Ponty’s te
Page 128 and 129: 20 Although Merleau-Ponty usually t
Page 130 and 131: 6 Sartre, ‘L’Homme et les Chose
Page 132: 5 Paul Valéry, passim. See, for ex
Page 135 and 136: freedom 27-8Freud 76Galileo 21geome
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Maurice Merleau-Ponty: The World of Perception - Timothy R. Quigley

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