Maurice Merleau-Ponty Books
Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) was a French philosopher associated with the phenomenological movement. A professor at the Collège de France, he profoundly influenced contemporary philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science through his work on perception, the body, and consciousness.
Known for: Phenomenology of Perception
Books by Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Phenomenology of Perception
Originally published in French in 1945, this landmark work by Maurice Merleau-Ponty explores perception as the foundation of knowledge and human existence. The author develops an embodied phenomenology, where the body is not an object in the world but the means through which the world is given to us. He challenges Cartesian thought and empiricism, proposing a philosophy of lived perception rooted in sensory experience.
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Critique of Empiricism
Empiricism, in its classical formulation, begins with the notion that perception consists of atomic sensations which the mind later arranges into coherent forms. According to this view, the eye registers colors, the ear registers sounds, and somehow these manifold stimulations are ordered to produce...
From Phenomenology of Perception
Critique of Intellectualism
Against the empiricist, the intellectualist philosopher claims that perception involves judgment, categorization, or concept formation: that before anything can be perceived as an apple, the mind must apply concepts of shape, color, and objecthood. In this view, perception becomes a derivative proce...
From Phenomenology of Perception
About Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) was a French philosopher associated with the phenomenological movement. A professor at the Collège de France, he profoundly influenced contemporary philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science through his work on perception, the body, and consciousness.
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Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) was a French philosopher associated with the phenomenological movement. A professor at the Collège de France, he profoundly influenced contemporary philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science through his work on perception, the body, and consciousness.
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