Product Description

Long considered Merleau-Ponty's defining work, this is so important because it returned the body to the forefront of philosophy for the first time since Plato. Its is a crucial work in understanding how we perceive the world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26088 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 672 pages

Review
'Merleau-Ponty was one of the most substantial French philosophers of the twentieth century.' - Times Literary Supplement

From the Back Cover

‘Merleau-Ponty was one of the most substantial French philosophers of the twentieth century.’ – Times Literary Supplement

Challenging and rewarding in equal measure, this is Merleau-Ponty’s most famous work. 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. Drawing on case studies such as brain-damaged patients from the First World War, Merleau-Ponty brilliantly shows how the body plays a crucial role not only in perception but in speech, sexuality and our relation to others. First published in English: 1962.

Customer Reviews

The Phenomenology of Perception: Between Then and Now
There is no doubt that this is an exceptionally dense work, and as such presents a challenge to anybody who dares to delve into the pages that make up this book. However, as with any challenge, the rewards are often equal to the difficulty. Merleau-Ponty's project is to try and articulate the relation between the subject and the object, an attempt to measure the distance between the two, to understand whether we are "in" the body, or "seperate" from the body (where would you place you soul-mind? Behind your eyes? Or out there, out there in the world?).

There are several reasons as to why this book is highly important to art historians, philosophers and cultural theorists, and not just for the fact that it virtually forms a companion piece to Jean-Paul Sartres "Being and Nothingness" (1949). I shall suggest but a few of them. In many ways it provides the line of connection between German thought in the early 20th century, specifically the the writings of Hurssel and Martin Heidegger, and then this connection stems out along two branches: The first leading to post-structuralist theory, especially in the writings of Jacques Derrida who explictly deals with Hurssel and Heidegger, and hence by extension, Merleau Ponty. Also in the structuralist/post-structuralit canon it relates to Jacques Lacan massively influential seminar from 1964 "The Gaze as Oject Petite a" (The second section of "The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis), who acknowledges his debt to Merleau-Ponty and his posthumous text "The Visible and the Invisible", for his exploration of the optic-semiotic field constitued by the Gaze. In turn this would of course lead to the "Male Gaze" discussed by film theorists like Laura Mulvey.

The second branch develops itself as the philosophical inspiration for Minimalism in the 1960's (Colin Smiths translation of this text was originally published in 1962), which sought to make the viewer realise that he is located in space as a subject, and that his perception was temperol as well as spatial. Michael Fried's critical, but formally accurate and well understood discussion on Minimalism, "Art and Objecthood" (1967) was undeniably indebted to Merleau-Ponty's text, as where future discussions of Minimalism, for example Rosalind Krauss's Passages in Modern Sculpture and Hal Foster's "The Crux of Minimalism. In this respect then, Merleau-Ponty's text and its elaboration by Minimalism paved the way for the movements in art that followed - conceptualism, for example. And then finally the two branches reconverge, Poststructuralism and Minimalism, like streams into a river, into Postmodernism that dominated the 70's and 80's.

All in all, as said above this is a difficult text, frustrating and illuminating in turns. But in the final analysis it is an essential text for anyone trying to wrestle with the genealogies of cultural production in the mid to late 20th century. Well worth a look.

A Brilliant, Insightful Work Betrayed by Poor Editing,
As I read this book, in a kind of ecstasy I cherish the occasion it gives me for thought and speech. The unlimited fecundity and clairvoyance of Merleau-Ponty's careful guidance is, however, marred by the carelessness of the preparation of this volume. Obvious typographical errors betray both the original text and Colin Smith's translation.

E.g. 'pute sensation' (for 'pure') p. 3, 'reflex are theory' (for 'arc') p. 8, 'receive' (for 'receiver') p. 8.

I appreciate Routledge bringing out a series of wide-ranging and important texts (many in translation) at a price affordable for most. However, the editing or typesetting mistakes occurring every other page give the impression that this edition has been prepared either without competence or without genuine interest.

I recommend buying a different edition of this book.

Important...but difficult to get through
It's a great shame Merleau-Ponty didn't write more simply and concisely. This is a major work of philosophy, with important original ideas within it.

But it's difficult to sort the message out from the book. I don't think this is a translation problem- a French friend of mine says the original French is still difficult.

I recommend the book, but warn readers it's not an easy read. However if you are a phenomenologist at some stage you'll have to tackle it.