Phenomenology of Perception (Routledge Classics) [Paperback]

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (Author), Colin Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 13, 1995 | ISBN-10: 0415045568 | ISBN-13: 978-0415045568 | Edition: New edition

Challenging and rewarding in equal measure, Phenomenology of Perception 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. Perhaps above all, Merleau-Ponty's insights about the embodied mind are a bold and refreshing challenge to the new era of virtual reality and artificial intelligence, as scientists and psychologists discover the centrality of the body to mind and intelligence.

Editorial Reviews

Review

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

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation)

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Product Details

• Paperback: 488 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; New edition edition (January 13, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415045568
• ISBN-13: 978-0415045568
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #728,726 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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70 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If only philosophers would follow his lead today!, March 16, 2001

By 

E. Thomson (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Phenomenology of Perception (Routledge Classics) (Paperback)

As shown in his first book, The Structure of Behavior, and this extension of that piece, Merleau-Ponty was a philosopher who was way ahead of his time.

While Husserl was off sputtering abstractly about phenomenology and 'essences', Merleau-Ponty planted himself squarely into the concrete, thick, world of lived experience: this book is a detailed phenomenological description of of attention, memory, space-perception, free will, and other psychological/phenomenological categories. M-P claims that simply by paying attention to this lifeworld, we see that previous philosophical systems have overlooked ineliminable dimensions of what it is like to be a person, and that this oversight has led to radically incomplete philosophical accounts of things like memory, perception, etc..

The book is so rich, original, and nuanced that it is hard to do it justice in a short review here. Not saddling himself with narrow academic techniques or fields, he draws on any resources he can to come to make sense of human experience. He cites not only philosophers such as Heidegger and Sarte, but draws equally heavily upon the Gestalt psychologists and neuroscientists of his day. He discusses phantom limbs, experiments on spatial perception, and psychophysical results from the Gestalt psychologists.

Many ideas that are popular in modern analytic philosophy and psychology can be found in this book: the view that 'sense data' are simply theoretical constructs, the view that attention focuses on objects not abstract spatial locations, and the claim that our original concepts cannot be understood independently of the embodied interactions with the world where we first come to use them.

I fear that Merleau-Ponty's nuanced philosophical psychology will fall through the cracks, being ignored by continental philosophers who focus on other things nowadays, and also by English speaking philosophers who dismiss Merleau-Ponty because he is a continental philosopher.

If you consider yourself a philosopher of mind, epistemologist, or a continental philosopher, please read this book. Twice.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Counterpiece, August 18, 2001

By 

Anthony L. Macri, Jr. (Ashburn, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Phenomenology of Perception (Routledge Classics) (Paperback)

Originally, I read this book as part of a Philosophy of the Body course, in companion with Sartre's magnum opus, Being and Nothingness. Trying to keep the two thinkers separate was quite easy, because of the difference in approach and ideas that they both take. Sartre relies on a dualism and intellectualism not easily understood, resulting in a complex and amorphous work, which is still utterly powerful.

M-P, however, as one review said, remains in the concrete experience of everyday life. Perception, the way the mind interprets the senses, the importance of memory, time, and freedom in the world, are all utterly important in this work. M-P provides a work which attempts to synthesize psychology, physicality, and philosophy resulting in a more holistic and foundational work than many 20th century philosophers.

This book can be read as philosophy or psychology, in fact, any course on perception in a Psychology department should read it. Anyone wishing to discuss the question of Pontius Pilate ("What is truth?") should read this book. It touches on so many themes of intellectual life that it will become perhaps the most influential work of philosophy of the 20th century, vying with Sartre's Being and Nothingness and Heidegger's Being and Time.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic of 20th Century Thought, November 18, 2000

By 

Edward Garea "Edward Garea" (Branchville, New Jersey United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Phenomenology of Perception (Routledge Classics) (Paperback)

When all is said and done (and that will take a while) on the studies of philosophy in the 20th century, two names will stand out as being the most influential: Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The Phenomenology of Perception was Merleau-Ponty's second work and lays the foundation for his later writings. What Merleau-Ponty attempts to do in this work is to take phenomenology away from the idealist and dualistic tracks of Husserl and Sartre and ground it firmly in ontology through a psychological analysis of perception. In doing so, Merleau-Ponty lays the foundations for Structuralism and its later incarnations, for better or worse, Poststructuralism and Deconstructuralism. (Derrida and Foucault attended his lectures.)Required reading for any student of 20th century thought and anyone who wants to know how philosophy came to its present position.