Book Description
Impressive in both scope and imagination, it uses the example of perception to return the body to the forefront of philosophy for the first time since Plato.
Customer Reviews:
Breakthough Phenomenology.......2007-07-18
"What is phenomenology? It may seem strange that this question has still to be asked half a century after the first works of Husserl" So says Merleau-Ponty in the opening pages of `Phenomenology of Perception,' perhaps the major work of phenomenology after `Being and Time.' Merleau-Ponty sought, rather brilliantly, to redirect attention to the human body as the locus of our being-in-the-world for phenomenological inquiry. Unfortunately, I am convinced that Merleau-Ponty's efforts to turn the results of his phenomenology into an ethics and a politics are less impressive and important than Heidegger's breathtakingly brilliant attempt to use phenomenology as a means to fundamental ontology. Still, one has to admire Merleau-Ponty's command over biology and the natural sciences. His descriptions of visual illusions and phantom limbs are by now established classics of the field. However, many of his examples are needlessly extensive and dense. Less committed readers should turn to the final chapters of the book, where the majority of his philosophy can be found.
As a side note, Routledge has produced an edition here that is positively replete with typos. Surprising for such a reputable publisher. Most readers will find the carelessness on their behalf extremely irritating.
Routledge Murders a Great Work.......2007-03-05
Merleau-Ponty's work is nothing less than a classic, one of the great works of philosophy in the 20th century. It should go without saying, then, that this work should be made available in an up-to-date and scholarly translation.
Unfortunately, this is what Routledge has refused to do. Not only does this "new" edition maintain all of the known mistakes and inconsistencies of the original translation (most of which were not corrected when the translation was revised twenty years ago), but it also introduces literally dozens of type-setting errors. In addition to all of the obvious mistakes in punctuation and spelling (e.g., "intelfection" on p. xx; "in a world" instead of "in a word" on p. 129; "deralizes" for "derealizes" on p. 140; "writes" for "writers," p. 163; "Rinswanger" for "Binswanger," note 6, p. 185, and the list goes on and on), you will also encounter such lovely gems as "Bergson's inferiority" (instead of "interiority", p. 67) and "adduction" transformed into "abduction" -- when distinguishing between the two is precisely the point of Merleau-Ponty's discussion (p. 243). In short, an already flawed translation has now been bungled into a bloody mess. If you are reading this book for the first time, you would be well-advised to check the used bookstores for a copy of the earlier edition. If you are trying to use this text with students, lots of luck to you!
It is also worth mentioning that Routledge has again failed to include a translation of Merleau-Ponty's original table of contents in this edition, so that many English readers are still unaware that he provided a detailed outline of the entire text to guide the reader. A translation by Daniel Guerriere is available in the Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 10, no. 1 (1979) - although, of course, the page numbers no longer correspond to this "new" edition.
A masterpiece!.......2007-02-23
Merleau-Ponty's masterpiece is really an exquisite piece of writing. I know from an excellent source that there is a new translation coming soon. The French to English translation was done by a French professor, not a philosopher so some of M-P's subtle nuances are lost. Then again, so much is lost in translation anyway. Anyway you slice it, though, it is an excellent read and I recommend it full-heartedly.
Wonderful.......2007-02-12
Very prompt shipping and the book was in excellent condition when it arrived, in plenty of time for classes starting.
Stunning.......2006-10-15
While reading this book you get a sense of a man truly on the verge of profound truth. It's a difficult read (the section on time alone will make you wonder if the book is written in English) yet it's importance is still being discovered. More grounded in science than Sartre or Heidegger, MP's work is that of a supremely disciplined thinker, one who builds a case and sees it through a series of arguments supported by actual evidence. (although the evidence is from studies done 50 years ago, it's impressive how much his work still holds up in the face of current cognitive science research)
I have two complaints with the book. One is the translation. While I'm sure MP is a difficult read in any language, the sentence structure is nearly incomprehensible at times. It's hard for me to believe that the best, most accurate translation would leave it so awkward. My second problem is the index. If you ever want to find anything in the book after you read it I suggest you dogear it because the index is a cruel joke.
Book Description
"Painting does not imitate the world, but is a world of its own."
In 1948, Maurice Merleau-Ponty wrote and delivered on French radio a series of seven lectures on the theme of perception. Translated here into English for the first time, they offer a lucid and concise insight into one of the great philosophical minds of the twentieth-century.
The lectures explore themes central not only to Merleau-Ponty's philosophy but to phenomenology as a whole. He begins by rejecting the idea - inherited from Descartes and influential within science - that perception is unreliable, prone to distort the world around us. Merleau-Ponty instead argues that perception is inseparable from our senses and it is how we make sense of the world.
Merleau-Ponty explores this guiding theme through a brilliant series of reflections on science, space, our relationships with others, animal life and art. Throughout, he argues that perception is never something learned and then applied to the world. As creatures with embodied minds, he reminds us that we are born perceiving and share with other animals and infants a state of constant, raw, unpredictable contact with the world. He provides vivid examples with the help of Kafka, animal behavior and above all modern art, particularly the work of Cezanne.
A thought-provoking and crystalline exploration of consciousness and the senses, The World of Perception is essential reading for anyone interested in the work of Merleau-Ponty, twentieth-century philosophy and art.
Customer Reviews:
Finally, an effective way to introduce Merleau-Ponty .......2005-01-28
As a scholar whose intellectual life has been continually guided and inspired by the work of Merleau-Ponty for three and a half decades, I am overjoyed by the translation and publication of these seven radio lectures given by Merleau-Ponty in France in 1948. For the serious scholar, these are beautifully written and elegant statements about the heart of Merleau-Ponty's project to shift the ground of philosophy and phenomenology by diving into the depth of the perceptual world and turning to art as a touchstone for a reawakened perceptual experience. However, for the beginning philosophy student, they are wonderfully clear, engaging, and immediately comprehensible. For many of us, it has been frustrating that for the introductory student, much of Merleau-Ponty's oeuvre is intimidating or calls for a greater investment of concentration than many students are willing to make. This book is the perfect solution: it is brief, clear, and inviting. The perfect introduction... I can't recommend it highly enough! ... A sheer delight, as well as subtle, nuanced and evocative!
Customer Reviews:
A wide ranging intellect.......2005-12-25
As someone with strong backgrounds in neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy I can only applaud M-P's wide-ranging curiosity and knowledge and his refusal to be limited by the artificial boundaries of academic disciplines. His discussion of the phenomenology of perception draws its data and conclusions from many areas--as long as they had something to offer in illuminating and analyzing this important area.
Among M-P's many contributions, there was also, as scholar Glen Mazis put it in one of his reviews here, M-P's "...project to shift the ground of philosophy and phenomenology by diving into the depth of the perceptual world and turning to art as a touchstone for a reawakened perceptual experience."
In this regard, I am reminded of the great but insufficiently appreciated philosopher, Samuel Alexander, who wrote in the early 20th century, in his major work, Space, Time, and Deity. Alexander was similarly eclectic, and moved back and forth between deduction, induction, historical argument, and between science and philosophy, without any sense of discontinuity whatever. In other words, he was willing to use whatever worked.
But getting back to M-P, this book represents M-P's thoroughgoing approach to the phenomenology of perception and in its determination to ground such analysis in the ordinary data of everyday life--much as G.E. Moore attempted to ground his metaphysics in very ordinary, everyday facts. M-P is to be commended for a similar approach in this book also in his The Phenomenology of Perception.
Flesh Ontology.......2004-04-12
The working notes of this book are utterly staggering in their implication to ontology. What is being? Merleau answers in the manner of Lao-Tse, and alludes to something like a divine-feminine at the heart of wild perception. It was said by Sartre in his autobiography "Situations" that after Merleau's mother died who was like a "goddess" to him Merleau returned began the project anew. What is intimated in the working notes is invaluable to the true student of philosophy and life. And in the end, Merleau returns to the very object of his study. You can really feel this descent at the book nears its end. It is, however, an ascent of the entirety of the history of philosophy to a new level of comprehension. That I assure you.
Merleau-Ponty's Last Work.......2000-11-24
The Visible and the Invisible is the last work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, left unfinished by his untimely death. (Does anyone really have a timely death?)
In this volume from Northwestern University Press, the unfinished text is appended by the working notes for the volume in an excellent translation by Alphonso Lingis with deft editing and a sterling introduction by Claude Lefort.
Merleau-Ponty, arguably the greatest philosopher of the Twentieth Century (he does not carry the baggage Heidegger does), was moving in this volume to a new determination of the relationship between phenomenology and ontology. Reading the volume and the working notes leads the reader to wonder how successful it would have been had Merleau-Ponty lived to publish it. As it is, it adds up to another of the intangibles taht make Western intellectual history such an enticing puzzle. Recommended for anyone interested in Twentieth Century philosophy.
Book Description
Maurice Merleau-Ponty was described by Paul Ricoeur as "the greatest of the French phenomenologists." The new essays in this volume examine the full scope of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy, from his central and abiding concern with the nature of perception and the bodily constitution of intentionality to his reflections on science, nature, art, history, and politics. The authors explore the historical origins and context of his thought as well as its continuing relevance to contemporary work in phenomenology, philosophy of mind, cognitive science, biology, art criticism and political and social theory.
Customer Reviews:
Perception of Consciousness. .......2005-05-30
I had the priviledge of hearing Martin Dillon lecture on Merleau-Ponty a few years ago in a Philosophy of Consciousness Master Class. Not only was he completely charismatic and a fascinating speaker but his work is a very interesting journey in discovering a profound flaw in the basis of the historical model for epistemology. This is exactly what Merleau-Ponty was dialectically pointing out in all his works. Perhaps as some have noted, Dillon tends to oversimplify by flat out tackling the problem of reduction and the cartesian separation of mind and matter. . . the point of the Merleau-Ponty's work is usually hidden to most because of it's dialectical nature... Dillon is merely trying to put this right out on the table and tackle the logistics of our finite nature we have overlooked. The infinite form of the good is something man can never achieve simply because he is not divine - therefore, why should we base all our models of thought and learning on the idea that the only way to know something is to transcend the body into the Mind? Our ultimate knowledge lies in our bodily interaction with the world. The fact that we will end gives us the ultimate meaning. Our divinity is our finite nature. Martin Dillon's work is a must read for anyone who is interested in phenomenology. He is blunt but do not mistake this as a flaw... it is simply his style.
Great.......2003-07-11
Dillon puts Merleau-Ponty in an historical persepctive and his thesis is that Merleau-Ponty's ontology is the first non-dualistic in western philosophy. Were Husserl failed becuse of his cartesian constraints Merelau-Ponty succedes. Dillon's masterful understanding of western philosophy and its limitations leads him to see Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology as the only true alternative to traditional thought. He now want us to understand this, and when we do continue in Merleau-Pontys direction and evolve philosophy from the constraints av tradtional dualistic thought.
A fabulous work........2003-06-14
Pay no heed to the pretentiousness of what one reviewer decried as "bipolar" (good guys vs. bad guys) philosophy, this is the greatest secondary philosophical text I have ever read, and perhaps what really irritated the previous reviewer wasn't Dillon's "no real understanding of Husserl," or the "[tired] postmodernism-bashing [that] shows no real understanding of the positions under discussion", but rather was Dillon's own palatable disdain for such intellectual pretentiousness reverberating throughout his text. Rather than writing in ego-gratifying but incomprehensible prose, Dillon authors a wonderfully open and accessible philosophical text that clearly and cogently explains the complex issues under discussion, a feat that is ultimately more difficult than the all to common obscure and esoteric ramblings of modern philosophy.
Far from being a "bipolar" text, this book offers an intricate examination of the historical progression and ultimate failure of bipolar/reductionist thought in the western tradition, be it mind vs. body dualism, immanence vs. transcendence, or linguistic realism vs. conventionalism. Dillon demonstrates convincingly how polarizing (and ultimately second-order) constructions of reality ultimately betray the underlying ontological reality which they were designed to explain by rendering truth and judgment valuation impossible. He then goes on to explain why he believes that the thought of Merleau-Ponty, grounded on the ontological primacy of the phenomena, avoids this reifying of second-order abstractions that create ontological polarization and collapse reality into exclusive spheres of immanence or transcendence.
Moreover, contrary to what was said in the past review, Merleau-Ponty is never deified in the book as someone who "fell from the sky one day to solve all of our philosophical problems". Dillon has obvious disagreements with aspects of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy (read "The Body In Its Sexual Being" from M-P's Phenomenology of Perception and then Dillon's Beyond Romance for one example) that are not presented in this work due to its nature as a secondary text on Merleau-Ponty's ontology, published at a time when such a topic was rarely discussed. Still, this book never even approaches presenting Merleau-Ponty in such a god-like portrait; rather Dillon simply but methodically presents the case that Merleau-Ponty, unlike Sartre among others, offers a true phenomenological ontology grounded on the primacy of the phenomena that (if considered seriously) presents a real and unavoidable challenge to polarizing/reductionist ontological theories, including those that came to the fore after Merleau-Ponty's death in the "linguistic turn".
As the reviewer from the Moon says: "if good philosophy is what you want, it's rarely so bipolar."
It's okay, but it doesn't live up to the hype...........2003-01-15
Sure, Dillon's book is probably the most popular thing on Merleau-Ponty in English, but is that really justified? Throughout the book, Dillon claims to elucidate Merleau-Ponty's position by contrasting his work with a completely unrecognizeable caricature of Husserl. Not only does Dillon show no real understanding of Husserl, but he also ignores the fact that Merleau-Ponty consistently praises Husserl, from the beginning to the end of his career (see the new Merleau-Ponty, _Husserl at the Limits of Phenomenology_). The postmodernism-bashing is also very tired and shows no real understanding of the positions under discussion.
Simply put, to believe Dillon's presentation of Merleau-Ponty, you'd have to believe he just fell from the sky one day to solve all of our philosophical problems--no relation to his predecessors nor to his successors. Not only is this bad history of philosophy, but it ignores Merleau-Ponty's own far more subtle and penetrating method of reading those who preceded him in the history of philosophy. If it's all such a simple little problem of overcoming the evils of Cartesianism, why is Merleau-Ponty's reading of Descartes (see the 1960-1961 course in _Notes de cours, 1959-1961_) so much more complex and interesting than Dillon's?
Perhaps the biggest advantage of Dillon's book is that it makes everything so neat and tidy, the good guys and the bad guys. Some people need this kind of orderly arrangement in their lives. If that's you, go for it. But if good philosophy is what you want, it's rarely so bipolar.
Great explication of MP but a bit unfair to 'postmodernism'.......1999-10-22
Dillon gives an illuminating discussion of the 'philosophical dualism' - e.g. in Descartes, Hume, Kant and Sartre - against which Merleau-Ponty is arguing. Dillon's treatment of Merleau-Ponty's central concepts is at once lucid and fair. I think this book would be ideal either as an introduction or as a supplement to MP's thought (Dillon offers some persuasive criticisms of MP as well). My only criticism is that Dillon's picture of 'poststructualism', of which Derrida is taken to be the 'whipping boy', is perhaps a bit unfair -- but the few oversimplifications are just as informative as Dillon's many accute insights into the "postmodern fervor." Anyone interested in MP should certainly check this mama out.
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Feminist Interpretations of Maurice Merleau-ponty (Re-Reading the Canon)
Manufacturer: Pennsylvania State University Press
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Book Description
More than sixty years ago, Simone de Beauvoir identified the importance of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's writings to feminist theory. His exploration of the relationship between the body and the space it inhabits is key to modern phenomenological thinking. But there has been little agreement on how Merleau-Ponty's ideas ultimately have an impact on feminist philosophy. Does his emphasis on physical subjectivity lend a certain agency to all bodies, regardless of sex? Or do Merleau-Ponty's specific descriptions of physical experience betray an intrinsic bias toward a male heterosexual point of view? The essays presented here by Olkowski and Weiss attempt to situate Merleau-Ponty in the larger context of feminist theory, while impartially evaluating his contributions, both positive and negative, to that theory.
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