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

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In the first three lectures, we argued with respect to science,painting and philosophy that the transition from classical tomodern was marked by what might be thought of as a reawakeningof the world of perception. We are once more learningto see the world around us, the same world which we hadturned away from in the conviction that our senses had nothingworthwhile to tell us, sure as we were that only strictlyobjective knowledge was worth holding onto. We are rediscoveringour interest in the space in which we are situated.Though we see it only from a limited perspective – our perspective– this space is nevertheless where we reside and werelate to it through our bodies. We are rediscovering in everyobject a certain style of being that makes it a mirror of humanmodes of behaviour. So the way we relate to the things of theworld is no longer as a pure intellect trying to master an object69
or space that stands before it. Rather, this relationship is anambiguous one, between beings who are both embodied andlimited and an enigmatic world of which we catch a glimpse(indeed which we haunt incessantly) but only ever from pointsof view that hide as much as they reveal, a world in whichevery object displays the human face it acquires in ahuman gaze.Yet we are not alone in this transfigured world. In fact, thisworld is not just open to other human beings but also to animals,children, primitive peoples and madmen who dwell in itafter their own fashion; they too coexist in this world. Todaywe shall see that the rediscovery of the world of perceptionallows us to find greater meaning and interest in these extremeor aberrant forms of life and consciousness. So much so thatthe whole spectacle that is the world and human life itselftakes on new meaning as a result.It is well known that classical thought has little time for animals,children, primitive people and madmen. You will recallthat Descartes saw animals as no more than collections ofwheels, levers and springs 1 – in effect, as machines. Those classicalthinkers who did not view animals as machines saw theminstead as prototypes of human beings: many entomologistswere all too keen to project onto animals the principal characteristicsof human existence. For many years, our knowledge ofanimal life
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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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Page 31 and 32: photograph in which the feet look a
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Page 35 and 36: which our own life has been disturb
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Page 41 and 42: Merleau-Ponty now extends this aest
Page 43 and 44: etter conception of reason (e.g. di
Page 46: The World of Perception
Page 50 and 51: The world of perception, or in othe
Page 52 and 53: explain the illusions of long- and
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Page 56: exercise of a pure and unsituated i
Page 60 and 61: It has often been said that modern
Page 62 and 63: which effect certain changes in the
Page 64 and 65: along lines running from the painte
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Page 68: 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
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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
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Page 126 and 127: NotesFOREWORD1 Merleau-Ponty’s te
Page 128 and 129: 20 Although Merleau-Ponty usually t
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6 Sartre, ‘L’Homme et les Chose
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5 Paul Valéry, passim. See, for ex
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freedom 27-8Freud 76Galileo 21geome
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Maurice Merleau-Ponty: The World of Perception - Timothy R. Quigley

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