Maurice Merleau-Ponty (Merleau-Ponty Maurice)

(1908-1961)
Born March 14, 1908 in Rochefort-sur-Mer. In 1926-1930 he studied, along with Jean-P.Sartrom and S.de Beauvoir, the Ecole Normale Supц?rieure. In 1929, listening to lectures at the Sorbonne Husserl. In 1939 he was invited as a consultant to the newly opened in Louvain 'Archive Husserl', where he worked on preparations for the publication of manuscripts philosopher. Through the efforts of the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty was firmly established in France. Thanks to Aaron Gurvich Merleau-Ponty acquainted with Gestalt theory. Philosopher gained widespread fame after 1945, . when, together with Jean-P.Sartrom founded the magazine 'Tang Nouveau' ( 'Les Temps Modernes') (collaboration with Sartre was interrupted for political reasons in 1952), . which became the mouthpiece of the French intellectuals, . fond of existentialism and Marxism,
. Aloof irrationalism, Merleau-Ponty always emphasized that the agenda is not parting with the mind, and expand the scope of reasonable. In thinking of the philosopher, along with Hegel and Marx, Husserl and Heidegger, played a large role Freud (and later by J. Lacan), F. de Saussure and Roman Jakobson, and K.Levi-Strauss. In 1949 the philosopher was invited to the Sorbonne, where he lectured on child psychology, and in 1952 became a professor at the College de France, where he taught until his death in Paris on May 3, 1961.
Key ideas Merleau-Ponty was voiced in his dissertation - The structure of behavior (La structure du comportement, 1942) and Phenomenology of perception (Phnomnologie de la perception, 1945). The latter is one of the fundamental works on the phenomenology. Analysis of the key phenomena of behavior and perception is Merleau-Ponty opportunity to develop a new phenomenology of the body, . using not only the ideas of Husserl, . Scheler and Heidegger, . but also representatives of Gestalt psychology (Kohler), . medical anthropology (E. Strauss), . Neuropathology (K. Goldstein), . theory of behavior (F. Betendeyk),
. Immediately after the Phenomenology of perception the release of articles and essays Merleau-Ponty, . subsequently combined into collections Humanism and Terror (Humanisme et terreur, . 1947), . Sense and nonsense (Sens et non-sense, . 1948) and, . Finally, . Adventures of dialectics (Les aventures de la dialectique, . 1955), . in which the author criticizes the Marxist philosophy of history,
. The collection Signs (Signes, 1960) felt signs of the new approach is also evident in the works of Merleau-Ponty on the painting, the most important of which - and the spirit of the Eye (L'oeil et l'esprit, 1961).

Among the posthumous publications of a thinker worth mentioning Visible and invisible (Le visible et l'invisible, 1964), the work, containing a sketch of a new ontology. In 1969 was published another unfinished essay Merleau-Ponty - Prose of the world (La prose du monde).

Developing the phenomenology of the body, Merleau-Ponty is shifting the focus of phenomenological description, trying to find a middle path between rationalism and empiricism, materialism and spiritualism. The body is neither a pure consciousness, or natural, natural thing, it is neither 'outside' or 'inside'. The body acts as a 'turning point' (Husserl's term) between nature and culture, among others and own. The phenomena of human life - from hand to touch erotic ritual, from words to pictures - and are the natural and artificial. The meaning is manifested in bodily behavior, characterized by unfinished, polysemy and vagueness. Therefore, it depends on our responses to his request and unfolds in a kind of dialogue with the world.

In the 1950's center of gravity of thought Merleau-Ponty is shifted towards structural phenomenology. Under the influence of structural linguistics and structural anthropology philosopher comes to the concept of the indirect nature of meaning. Meaning occurs only between characters. Any smysloporozhdenie occurs only as a deviation, deformation. This means that not only the old and new, but strange, and your own, someone else's speech and speech itself are intertwined.

The final stage of intellectual evolution of Merleau-Ponty was the creation of indirect (indirect) ontology. In the visible recalled his order of the invisible, in the minds of a dark, unwitting spot here-being points to the existence of unearthly. Genesis is not before us as clear and obvious reality, it goes around us as the 'raw' and 'savage' existence, which precedes smyslopolaganiyu and detonates any meaningful order. The notion of one's own body (corps propre) gives way to the notion of the flesh (chaire) - texture, covering and I, and others, and external things. As the viewer and appear to relate to and deals with the self experiences itself in the unity of his proximity to and distance in relation to itself. I separated from myself. I see myself as in a mirror, I can hear myself in an echo, the other, with whom I meet - like my twin. Distance and lack of invisible and inaudible inscribed in the visible and audible world. Phenomenological problem - using words to make explicit what eludes sight and touch.