merleau-ponty

Merleau-Ponty, like other existentialist philosophers, believes that every human being has a special situation, position and existence in the world, that this existence is a product of being-in-the-world, and on the other hand, man, from his point of view, is a special situation and being-in-the-world. - Experiences the world. And the body makes the living man find himself and his existence. In this article, an attempt is made to evaluate Merleau-Ponty's attitude about the two previous concepts in the works and the attitude of the Impressionists and the works of Claude Monet as an example. Monet's works express Merleau-Ponty's conscious body experience, which portrays the situation he perceives based on living and being-in-the-world. In fact, this being in the world, in Merleau-Ponty's interpretation, is the same way of life that the impressionists use for illustration, and it has become their painting style. The main question of the article is that considering that Merleau-Ponty believes that human connection with the outside world is based on sensory perception, and on the other hand, art, especially painting, is a manifestation of sensory perception, is the attitude of the Impressionists, including Claude Monet, also in drawing the outside world? Is it like Merleau-Ponty's attitude or not? Because Claude Monet also achieves a special kind of sensory and visual perception of the outside world by using light in his paintings, and this makes Monet aligned with Merleau-Ponty's thinking.

Feminist phenomenology has emerged as a distinct academic field over the past five decades, revisiting foundational aspects of phenomenological thought. Traditionally perceived as incompatible with feminist strategies due to its essentialist tendencies, phenomenology, particularly through the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, has provided new frameworks for analyzing gender and sexual difference. Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex marked a pivotal moment in feminist engagement with phenomenology, focusing on the embodied subject to challenge biological determinism. This paper explores the theoretical and methodological development of feminist phenomenology, highlighting its most significant trends and examining the critiques that have sought to reintroduce the role of lived experience in the production of knowledge. The primary research questions include: How has feminist phenomenology evolved within the broader phenomenological tradition? What are the key theoretical contributions of this field? How does it address issues of gender and embodiment?
In reviewing the relevant literature, it becomes clear that feminist theorists, especially those influenced by structuralist and poststructuralist traditions, have been central to this field’s development. Additionally, internal critiques within feminist phenomenology have worked to recover the epistemic importance of lived experience, particularly in its non-discursive aspects.

The research methodology for this study is primarily theoretical and involves a critical review of key texts within feminist phenomenology. This includes an analysis of both historical and contemporary writings from philosophers like Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Butler, and Linda Martin Alcoff, as well as their engagements with the work of Merleau-Ponty. The paper is divided into two main sections. The first part provides an overview of Merleau-Ponty’s theory of embodied perception. The second section traces the development of feminist phenomenology as an independent field, focusing on the contributions of key thinkers and the internal debates surrounding the role of language and experience. The goal is to map the trajectory of feminist phenomenology and identify its major theoretical contributions, while also considering how feminist theorists have adapted phenomenological methods to address issues of gender and embodiment.

The findings of the study reveal that feminist phenomenology has been profoundly influenced by both structuralist and poststructuralist thought, particularly in its critique of essentialism and its focus on the body as a site of knowledge production. Key theorists like Judith Butler have expanded Merleau-Ponty’s ideas on embodiment to explore the performativity of gender, arguing that gender is not a stable identity but a series of acts that produce the illusion of coherence. Butler’s concept of performativity, while drawing on phenomenological notions of embodiment, shifts the focus from the body as a passive entity to the body as an active participant in the production of meaning. Linda Martin Alcoff, another important figure in feminist phenomenology, critiques poststructuralist approaches for neglecting the epistemic significance of lived experience. Alcoff argues for a re-engagement with phenomenology as a way to foreground the role of the body in the production of knowledge, particularly in relation to race and gender. Her concept of "embodied horizons" underscores the idea that our understanding of the world is shaped by our bodily experiences and that these experiences are always situated within specific social and historical contexts.

The discussion highlights the key contributions of feminist phenomenology to contemporary debates on gender, embodiment, and knowledge production. One of the main strengths of feminist phenomenology is its ability to account for the materiality of the body without reducing it to biological determinism. By focusing on the lived experiences of gendered subjects, feminist phenomenology offers a nuanced understanding of how bodies are socially and historically constituted. However, the field also faces significant challenges, particularly in its attempt to reconcile the non-discursive aspects of bodily experience with the discursive frameworks of poststructuralist thought. The work of theorists like Butler and Alcoff demonstrates the potential for feminist phenomenology to address these challenges by developing a more comprehensive account of embodiment that integrates both language and lived experience.

This paper concludes that feminist phenomenology offers a valuable framework for understanding the complex relationships between gender, embodiment, and knowledge. By foregrounding the body as a site of meaning and knowledge production, feminist phenomenologists have challenged traditional philosophical dichotomies between mind and body, subject and object. The future of feminist phenomenology lies in its ability to continue expanding its theoretical and methodological boundaries, particularly in response to critiques from within the field. By engaging more deeply with the role of race, sexuality, and class in shaping embodied experience, feminist phenomenology can offer even more robust insights into the ways in which bodies are constituted within specific social and historical contexts.

The subject of "body" is one of the topics that was not taken seriously before Merleau-Ponty, but he made it the basis of his thought with the phenomenology of sensory perception, and since then good studies has been done on the body whose number is increasing every day. In the present article, using a descriptive-analytical and comparative method, we try to examine the capacities of Islamic philosophy on the subject of body while describing the views of Merleau-Ponty and Mulla Sadra. The research concluded that Mulla Sadra's intuitive-argumentative method not only covers to a large extent the achievements of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological method about the body, but also has additional attainments that show the depth, breadth, and explanatory power of his approach and view. Both Mulla Sadra and Merleau-Ponty, in their special statements, refer to the body as being knower, towards the world, active and constructive. But unlike Merleau-Ponty, Mulla Sadra, due to believing in the innate knowledge of the soul for the body, was able to consider bodies other than the material body, such as the analogical body. In addition, he not only did not consider the world to be limited to the empirical and phenomenal world, but he did not even limit it to being in relation to the body, and for example he considered a rational world which is in relation to and united with the level of human intellect.

According to Merleau-Ponty, the intentionality that Husserl speaks of represents reflective action and the objectifying of t consciousness which examines the constituted experiences from above as an object for the subject. As a result of this intentionality, the pre-reflective and constituted confrontation with the world is impossible and the pre-predictive unity of the subject and the object remains hidden. To solve this problem, then, we must consider an intentionality as a fundamental intentionality by which consciousness, without explicitly conceptualizing and instead of assuming its own objects, turns to them. This intentionality, which Merleau-Ponty calls “operative intentionality,” does not depend on the intention being in front of the subject, but on the initial orientation of the subject towards the world by which the subject is placed in the world and cannot be considered outside or separate from it. The presence of the subject in the world is made possible by the subject’s body. As a result, the body becomes a tool for consciousness that allows it to communicate directly with the objects around consciousness. Such a meaning of intentionality means that it is no longer possible to regard objectivity as finding the nature of objects in transcendental consciousness. Rather, objectivity is the moment in which the world is given to the subject in the perceptual experience. In this article we explain how this meaning of objectivity is realized and its conditions in Merleau-Ponty phenomenology.

Many attempts to understand the nature of perception and its phenomena have been the result of the thoughts of phenomenologists and Gestalt psychologists. Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Rudolph Arnheim are two of the prominent philosophers and theorists in this field, who’s their opinions are influenced by Gestalt school with a phenomenological approach.The present article aims at achieving a broad cognition of the nature of perception by comparing the opinions of these two philosophers and analyzes these implications in the field of art education.This research was carried out with phenomenological approach, using an analytically-comparative method and utilizing authentic documents and library resources.The findings of the study show that Merleau-Ponty and Arnheim share the same thoughts, they believe that in visual perception, contrary to the dualistic doctrines of Descartes, the essence of the inner and outer world (subject & object) takes the form of a gestalt in the interplay between different forces and it is through this intertwining of the organism with the perceived world and it,s possible to understand the real thing. Also, by relying on this overall structure, we can achieve the meanings and Visual expression that there are in vision and visual arts as communication tools of artist. Therefore, the necessity of creating and understanding an artwork is the mental ability to understand these integrated and meaningful structures, which doubles the excellent understanding of visual phenomena in art education.

In this article, we try to show that Maurice Merleau-Ponty, as the patron saint of the body, offers a phenomenological analysis of the body that is neither psychological nor rational, but existential in nature. Influenced by Heidegger's philosophy, Merleau-Ponty presents an existential analysis of man and his corporeality as the corporeal subject relates to the world. In this article, focusing on concepts such as location, body schema, flesh, absent body, and body perspective, we show that Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological analysis of these existential concepts has important role in understanding of the lived-body. Merleau-Ponty, by criticizing Descartes' body and abandoning his duality of soul and body, turns to the existential union of the two in the form of a bodily subject, showing that human existence can be understood through this bodily. He contrasts this analysis with philosophical analyzes, including Cartesian philosophy, in which he believes that sensory perception and the body as the foundation of human consciousness play an important role in his pre-reflective understanding of himself and the world.

This paper discusses the meaning of the body in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception. At firs t, I address two challenges raised for interpreting the body in this book. Then I develop a framework for unders tanding Merleau-Ponty’s conception of body. This framework involves a negative and a positive aspect, and will be introduced from four perspectives (i.e. an epis temological, an ontological, a spatial and a temporal perspective). In particular, according to the negative aspect, the body is not an object. On the other hand, from epis temological perspective, the body is our point of view to objects. From the ontological perspective, the body is an organism intended to get the maximum grip on its world. In addition, the body is our spatio -temporal horizon to the world. Finally, with this framework on the table, I try to shed a new light on the two interpretive challenges.

In the sphere of thought, whether eastern or western, perception and thought are more conceived on the basis of the spirit and reason. In the meantime, bodiliness is either treated unkindly or is thoroughly ignored. Mulla Sadra with his essential movement and Merleau-Ponty through his Phenomenology of Perception allocated a pivotal role for the bodiliness in understanding and perception. To Mulla Sadra, bodiliness is the first step of perception (bodily initiation); then; through the spirit, this perception leads to the spiritual persistence. To Merleau-Ponty, on the other hand, bodiliness is the sole way to perceive the existence. The present study aims to analyze comparatively Mulla Sadra and Maurice Merleau-Ponty ideas concerning bodiliness through descriptive- analytical method. In so doing, Mulla Sadra's philosophy concerning the bodily initiation of the spirit are carefully studied to scrutinize the bodiliness. Then, Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception is described. Finally, the similarities and differences of both philosophers are elaborated.

In the phenomenology of perception, Merleau-Ponty tries to transcend the traditional explanation of intentionality and therefore he describes the phenomenology of the body. According to Merleau-ponty, there is no separation between the world and consciousness and these two are completely tied together. Conciseness for Merleau-ponty is not a mere subject which constitute the eternal essences and natures and gives meaning to phenomena, but it is the body-subject that direct toward the world and cannot be separated from this field of action in the world. The objects of this subject-body are also in the phenomenal fielding that determined by directing the lived body toward them and it comes out of ambiguity and thus, their meaning is born. Accordingly, intentionality for Merleau -Ponty, is the orientation in the world and directedness toward the world itself, and the intentional states are realized in collisions or physical states in a physical and concrete environment. In this paper, we try to provide an interpretation of the concept of intentionality from the perspective of Merleau-ponty, which he calls it "practical intentionality", and we want to express its differences and similarities with Husserl’s intentionality. The main difference between the views of these two philosophers is in Merleau-ponty’s criticism on Husserl’s of Noesis-Noema structure. He claims that meaning is intrinsic to the phenomenal field and it is not possible to analyze it by a distinction between matter and form.

The French phenomenology philosopher, Maurice Merlou-Ponty fellow of earlier phenomenology philosophers thoughts about Human Perception, said Being and living are the most important ways to understanding Universal. Merleu -Ponty used term “lived body” to explain how our body connected with nature.in Merleu -Ponty thoughts body doesn’t mean just physical body, it means whole body: physical body and Mind.His thoughts made way for next philosophers like postmodern philosophers, and Transhumanists in past years. Transhumanism is a new philosophy that talk about future of human and Art. In this philosophy biological human body combined with technology and makes humans new life. According of this philosophy, human life enhanced by new technology and Man can live for long time. This research is about Meloru ponty body’s intention and human perception. What’s his influence on artificial intelligence and future of body human, the body that not be only zero one anymore? And what’s the position of living body in Transhumanists thoughts?

Merleau-Ponty’s place in the phenomenological movement, established by Edmund Husserl, can be determined only by considering the important role of “dialectic” in his thought. Using a dialectical method, he opens up a new path toward a “dialectical phenomenology” to release phenomenology, as understood in his time, from the antinomies into which it was entrapped. By adopting a dialectical strategy, Merleau-Ponty no longer defines the scope of phenomenology as “pure consciousness.” The encroachment of the “consciousness” and the “world” upon each other does not allow defining the scope of phenomenological investigation in terms of “substantiality of a domain.” Therefore, contrary to Husserl and Heidegger who delineated the phenomenological investigation against sciences, Merleau-Ponty, choosing a Hegelian approach, tries to overcome the ontic/ontological duality and widens the phenomenology’s scope of investigation.

In Phenomenological approach , regardless of the rules and rationality, the body is seen as a phenomenon that puts the subject exposed to the experience and sensibility. In this approach, the debate over the relationship between the subject , the world and the body is not based on the ontology of the subject and not on the basis of his knowledge of the world , but based on his experience and somatic proximity with the world. This paper seeks to address the phenomenology of Husserl , Merleau-Ponty and Levinas , with a focus on the body and the concept of embodiment , analyzes the contact points as well as differences in approaches and ideas of this philosophers. In the current study, based on the views of the philosophers, we are trying to respond to intertwined questions which are all linked with the body and embodiment of the subject . Also, we want to know how embodiment subject understands the world. The result is that, the body is not the means or the way to understand the world, but embodiment is the situation for vital living in the world and the possibility for our moral living whit the other.
This article by phenomenological approach based on the books and articles by means of descriptive - analytical and critical comparison of the philosophers , seeks for answers to the research questions.

The notion of space is one of the most interesting and attractive topics in Merleau-Ponty̕ s phenomenology of perception. Unlike Husserl who looks for certain facts in the field of pure consciousness, i.e., in the field devoid of natural assumptions such as time and place, but more like Heidegger’s idea of Being- in- the- world as the essential state of human beings; Merleau-Ponty believes that cognition of space is an a priori condition for our knowledge of objects and events. In addition, through more reflection on the psycho-physiological findings in contemporary psychology, Merleau-Ponty argues that our body is the ground or horizon by which objects take spatial features, and therefore it is the source of a dual relation between the subject and the world. He reiterates the point that all of our experiences followed by creation of new spatial levels that formed successively, and that our experiences are the result of the formation of new spatial levels of embodiment subject. A significant result of this view is that the individual subject is a historical one whose moments are formed by successive experiences in which the body’s spatial levels are aggregated to form a more complete special level compared with the previous ones.