Merleau-Ponty Maurice - The Merleau-Ponty dictionary

BLOOMSBURY PHILOSOPHY DICTIONARIES

The Bloomsbury Philosophy Dictionaries offer clear and accessible guides to the work of some of the more challenging thinkers in the history of philosophy. AZ entries provide clear definitions of key terminology, synopses of key works, and details of each thinkers major themes, ideas and philosophical influences. The Dictionaries are the ideal resource for anyone reading or studying these key philosophers.

Titles available in the series:

The Derrida Dictionary, Simon Morgan Wortham

The Gadamer Dictionary , Chris Lawn and Niall Keane

The Hegel Dictionary , Glenn Alexander Magee

The Heidegger Dictionary , Daniel O. Dahlstrom

The Husserl Dictionary, Dermot Moran and Joseph Cohen

The Marx Dictionary , Ian Fraser and Lawrence Wilde

The Sartre Dictionary , Gary Cox

Forthcoming in the series:

The Deleuze and Guattari Dictionary, Eugene B. Young with Gary Genosko and Janell Watson

The Kant Dictionary, Lucas Thorpe

The Nietzsche Dictionary, Douglas Burnham

The Wittgenstein Dictionary, Edmund Dain

BLOOMSBURY PHILOSOPHY DICTIONARIES

The
Merleau-Ponty
Dictionary

DONALD A. LANDES

Bloomsbury Academic

An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

www.bloomsbury.com

First published 2013

Donald A. Landes, 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

Donald A. Landes has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.

No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury Academic or the author.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-4411-5892-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN

Contents

AD Adventures of the Dialectic , trans. Joseph Bien (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973).

CPP Child Psychology and Pedagogy: The Sorbonne Lectures (194952) , trans. Talia Welsh (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2010).

HLP Husserl at the Limits of Phenomenology , ed. Leonard Lawlor with Bettina Bergo, trans. Leonard Lawlor (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2000).

HT Humanism and Terror , trans. John ONeill (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2000).

IP Institution and Passivity: Course Notes from the Collge de France (19541955) , trans. Leonard Lawlor and Heath Massey (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2010).

IPP In Praise of Philosophy and Other Essays , trans. James M. Edie and John Wild (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970).

MPAR The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader , ed. Galen A. Johnson, trans. ed. Michael B. Smith (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1996).

N Nature: Course Notes from the Collge de France , trans. Robert Vallier (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2003).

NC Notes de cours (19591961) , ed. Stphanie Mnas (Paris: Gallimard, 1996).

P Parcours: 19351951 , ed. Jacques Prunair (Lagrasse, France: ditions Verdier, 1997).

PhP Phenomenology of Perception , trans. Donald A. Landes (New York: Routledge, 2012).

PNP Philosophy and Non-Philosophy Since Hegel, trans. Hugh J. Silverman, in Philosophy and Non-Philosophy Since Merleau-Ponty , ed. Hugh J. Silverman, 983 (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1988).

PrP The Primacy of Perception , ed. James M. Edie (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964).

PSY Phenomenology and Psychoanalysis: Preface to Hesnards L uvre de Freud , trans. Alden L. Fisher, in Merleau-Ponty and Psychology , ed. Keith Hoeller, 6772 (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1993).

PW The Prose of the World , trans. John ONeill (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973).

S Signs , trans. Richard C. McCleary (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964).

SB The Structure of Behavior , trans. Alden L. Fisher (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1963).

SNS Sense and Non-Sense , trans. Hubert L. Dreyfus and Patricia A. Dreyfus (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964).

TD Texts and Dialogues: On Philosophy, Politics, and Culture , ed. Hugh J. Silverman and James Barry, Jr. (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 1992).

UBS The Incarnate Subject: Malebranche, Biran, and Bergson on the Union of the Body and Soul , trans. Paul B. Milan (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2001).

VI The Visible and the Invisible , trans. Alphonso Lingis (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968).

WP The World of Perception , trans. Oliver Davis (New York: Routledge, 2002).

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

On 3 May 1961 the history of philosophy lost a voice that was at the height of its philosophical expression, leaving behind an incredible body of published work alongside the mere traces of an emerging reflection that was to have simultaneously reshaped the form and the content of philosophy itself. Maurice Merleau-Ponty (190861) was a rare thinker, capable of drawing together various traditions and diverse approaches into a unique manner of questioning that remained responsible to its past and to its objects of study while creatively forging new directions through an unmistakable style. Drawing from existentialism and phenomenology, certainly, but also from empirical psychology, Gestalt psychology, neurology, psychoanalysis, Marxism, structuralism, sociology, political philosophy, the philosophy of history, and advances in literature and painting, Merleau-Pontys approach took up not simply a set of solutions from these sources in order to create a mere philosophical hodgepodge, but rather incorporated what he understood to be their promise into a unified patchwork in the direction of a genuine philosophical interrogation. On the surface, then, Merleau-Ponty is perhaps an ideal candidate for a philosophical dictionary that would identify all of these sources and influences, and provide a record of all of his solutions.

Yet Merleau-Ponty himself resisted two dangers in approaching the history of philosophy. He suggests that a constant vigilance is required to avoid either a subjective reading, in which the reader projects his or her own questions and answers across the text, or an objective reading, in which the reader seeks to restore the exact thought of the philosopher in question. For Merleau-Ponty, the danger of an objective reading is in its assumption that the thought of any philosopher is a system of neatly defined concepts, of arguments responding to perennial problems, and of conclusions which permanently solve the problems ( HLP , 5). Reading a philosopher is an art. It requires a confrontation or an encounter such that one gears into the open sense or the unthought directions of his or her thought, taking it up into ones own thought, which necessarily introduces something of oneself into the reading, without succumbing to the opposite danger of a subjective reading. For such a thinker, if a dictionary is to be written it must provide not the abstract network of solid definitions and synopses, but the tools for a responsible and creative reading. Indeed, as he writes of what one might call the open trajectory of sense or of history: each creation alters, clarifies, deepens, confirms, exalts, re-creates, or creates by anticipation all the others ( MPAR , 149). With nearly 300 interconnecting entries in this presentation of Merleau-Ponty, AZ, an extensive account of his life and works, and an index which provides guidance for concepts and topics woven throughout the individual entries, The Merleau-Ponty Dictionary aims not to be the final word on the meaning of Merleau-Pontys thought, but rather a companion for an open and responsible practice of reading, a practice in the style of Merleau-Ponty.