Smyth Bryan A. - Merleau-Pontys existential phenomenology and the realization of philosophy

Merleau-Pontys Existential Phenomenology and the Realization of Philosophy

Bloomsbury Studies in Continental Philosophy

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Merleau-Pontys Existential Phenomenology and the Realization of Philosophy

Bryan A. Smyth

Contents

The ideas in this book have been brewing for many years, and as is often the case, they stem from much wider explorations. This means, among other things, that a large number of people have contributed helpfully to them in various ways over the years. For their particular forms of assistance, I would like to thank Alia Al-Saji, Renaud Barbaras, Robert Bernasconi, Ronald Bruzina, Philip Buckley, Anna Carastathis, Franoise Dastur, Duane Davis, Bernard Flynn, George di Giovanni, Wayne Froman, John Hellman, Richard Holmes, Jonathan Kim-Reuter, Don Landes, Len Lawlor, Mary Beth Mader, Iain Macdonald, Darian Meachum, Arsalan Memon, David Morris, Stephen Noble, Richard Nutbrown, and Michel Rybalka. I would also like to thank Suzanne Merleau-Ponty for kindly making available to me her volume of Merleau-Pontys unpublished personal notes from the late 1940s ( Notes indites de Merleau-Ponty, 19461949 ), and Kerry Whiteside for having transcribed these notes and for conveying copies of the originals to me.

Very special thanks to Anne Quinney for her patient support and encouragement, and to Fyntan and Aurlia for making everything so much more intensely rewarding. It is to my parents that I owe the greatest debtthe book is dedicated to their memory.

Parts of the Preface and Conclusion are reprinted from The Meontic and the Militant: On Merleau-Pontys Relation to Fink, International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 19:5 (2011), 66999, with the kind permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd.

Parts of Chapter 5 are reprinted from Heroism and History in Merleau-Pontys Existential Phenomenology, Continental Philosophy Review, 43:2 (2010), 16791, with kind permission from Springer Science + Business Media.

See bibliography for complete bibliographic information. Where applicable, page references are given in the form original/translation. Translations are, however, frequently modified.

Works by Merleau-Ponty

1988, 312ff). I would like to thank Suzanne Merleau-Ponty and Kerry Whiteside for making copies of the originals as well as the transcription available to me. Original assigned pagination is followed by transcription pagination in square brackets. At Mme. Merleau-Pontys request, it should be noted that these materials were never intended for publication.

Works by others

Carnets Saint Exupry (1975), .

As with other figures of like stature, there is a vast amount of secondary literature devoted to the thought of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The last decade or so in particular has seen the publication of numerous new books. Why one more?

A critical glance at the situation in recent English-language Merleau-Ponty scholarship may be instructive here. For we see that the vast majority of recent volumes fall into one of the following two categories: (1) general introductions and reference works, It might be expounded or elucidated or spun or summarized or applied in this or that new way, but the standard working assumption is that with regard to Merleau-Pontys existential phenomenology in the immediate postwar period, there remain, so to speak, no unturned stones.