HFIK03952U FILO, Module 9: Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind: Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology: Embodiment, Perception, and the Social Life

Maurice Merleau-Ponty is arguably the greatest of the French phenomenologists, and a key figure in existentialist philosophy. His work continues to be highly relevant to philosophers working in phenomenology and philosophy of mind, not only because of its famous analyses of perceptual experience, the lived body, and intersubjectivity (to name just a few), but also because of the way Merleau-Ponty combines and integrates philosophical analysis with empirical findings. This course provides a thorough introduction to key aspects of Merleau-Ponty’s thought. We will focus in particular on Merleau-Ponty’s early masterpiece Phénoménologie de la perception (1945), now available in a new translation by Donald Landes (Routledge, 2012), which participants are expected to acquire for themselves. But we will also draw on later texts such as Merleau-Ponty’s lectures on child psychology and his last, unfinished book Le Visible et l’invisible (1964, English translation 1968).