What is freedom for Maurice Merleau-Ponty?

Merleau-Ponty maintains, on the contrary, that freedom is – indeed must be – limited by the situation in which it finds itself. Our freedom could never manifest itself as concrete action, Merleau-Ponty says, “without taking up something proposed to us by the world” (PP 502).

What does Merleau-Ponty say about perception?

In the words of Merleau-Ponty we can say: “Perception is a judgement, but one that is unaware of its own reasons, which comes down to saying that the perceived object gives itself as a whole and as a unity before we have grasped its intelligible law.” (MERLEAU-PONTY, 2012.

What is the perspective of Maurice Ponty?

Merleau-Ponty emphasizes throughout The Structure of Behavior that form, even though ontologically fundamental, cannot be accounted for in the terms of traditional realism; since form is fundamentally perceptual, an “immanent signification”, it retains an essential relationship with consciousness.

What did Maurice Merleau-Ponty believe in?

Maurice Merleau-Ponty believed the physical body to be an important part of what makes up the subjective self. This concept stands in contradiction to rationalism and empiricism. Rationalism asserts that reason and mental perception, rather than physical senses and experience, are the basis of knowledge and self.

When did Maurice Merleau-Ponty publish his Phenomenology of perception?

Completed in 1944 and published the following year, Phenomenology of Perception (PP) is the work for which Merleau-Ponty was best known during his lifetime and that established him as the leading French phenomenologist of his generation.

Why was Merleau-Ponty’s view on freedom so important?

Given that Merleau-Ponty’s views on freedom were in part a reaction to Sartre, it is helpful to quickly review Sartre’s position here before launching into Merleau-Ponty’s criticisms. Recall that Sartre’s theory of freedom is really the central theme of Being and Nothingness (“BN”), from which many of his other theses are derived.

When did Maurice Merleau Ponty become a professor?

Appointed Professor at the College de France in 1952, Maurice Merleau-Ponty was a highly esteemed professional philosopher because of his technical works in phenomenology and psychology.

Which is the thesis of the phenomenology of perception?

Even though freedom is not regarded as the central thesis of the Phenomenology of Perception (“PP”), Merleau-Ponty dedicates its final chapter solely to this issue, and tries to draw conclusions about it based on his position about experience and perception.