Merleau-Ponty's Existential Phenomenology and the Realization of Philosophy

by Smyth, Bryan A.

• ISBN13: 9781780937052
• ISBN10: 1780937059
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-02-13
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

Bringing to light the essential philosophical role of Marxism within Merleau-Ponty's reinterpretation of transcendental phenomenology, this book shows that the realization of this project hinges methodologically upon a renewed conception of the proletariat qua universal class—specifically, that it rests upon a humanist myth of incarnation which, substantiated by Merleau-Ponty's notion of ‘heroism', locates an objective historical purposiveness in the habituated organism of the modern subject.

Foregrounding the phenomenological priority of history over corporeality in this way, Smyth's analysis recovers the ‘militant' character of Merleau-Ponty's existential phenomenology. It thus sheds critical new light on his early thought, and challenges some of the main parameters of existing scholarship by disclosing the intrinsic normativity of his basic methodological commitments.

Author Biography

Bryan Smyth has been Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Memphis since 2008, prior to which he held a visiting appointment at Mount Allison University, USA.

Table of Contents

Preface: Re-reading Phenomenology of Perception \ Introduction: Flight from Phenomenology? \ 1. The Cosmic Humanism of Saint-Exupéry \ 2. Toward a Heroic Phenomenology \ 3. ‘Man, the Hero' \ 4. Incarnation vs. Heroism \ Conclusion: Phenomenology and Heroism \ Supplementary Notes \ Bibiography \ Index