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The World of Perception

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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!

Theory can be difficult to understand and apply. This book gives the author's philosophy clarity without compromising his theoretical application. Glad I've added this book to my collection. An added positive: it's easy reading!

Letting the person escape.

The World of Perception (1948, 2002, 2004) by Maurice Merleau-Ponty has an introduction by Thomas Baldwin which mentions "important matters that escape science" (p. 14) and the idea of freedom that we only imagine:

. . . we can neither escape personal responsibility
by imagining that our dependence upon others
determines how we are to act,
nor escape this dependence upon others
by imagining that our freedom enables us
to shape our future inalienably. (pp. 23-24).

the significance of everything
we try to do is dependent upon
the meaning others give to it. (p. 24).

the poet has to rely on the fact
that the reader brings certain
expectations and understandings
to their reading of the poem (p. 26).

there is no escape from the
requirement to justify our actions,
but, equally, no escape from the fact
that as we locate our justifications
in a space of reasons whose dimensions
are set by others, we have to accept
that they are bound to be found wanting
in some ways. (p. 27).

We glimpse an enigmatic world when we allow entertainment values to provide the frame of reference of society as in these radio talks by Maurice Merleau-Ponty:

In fact, this world is not just open
to other human beings but also to
animals, children, primitive peoples
and madmen who dwell in it after
their own fashion. (p.54).

The standards of institutions which can fire people for not being needed at the moment, or for failing to adopt a new priority which has been selected in order to surround those with power and wipe out everything that they stand for, grants greater meaning to "these extreme or aberrant forms of life and consciousness." (p. 54). Having discovered the techniques for bombing people back into the stone age, the extremes of financial manipulation have also created a world reserve currency which can leave the entire world destitute by shutting off the electricity. We assume that civilization formerly belonged in an intellectual context:

For classical thinkers,
this is a question of divine law:
for they either see human reason
as a reflection of the creator's
reason, or, even if they have entirely
turned their back on theology,
they are not alone in continuing
to assume that there is an underlying
harmony between human reason and the
essence of things. (pp. 55-56).

And if, for one moment, I step out
of my own viewpoint as an external
observer of this anger and try to
remember what it is like for me
when I am angry, I am forced to
admit that it is no different. (p. 63).

The location of my anger,
however, is in the space
we both share (p. 64).

For anxiety is vigilance,
it is the will to judge,
to know what one is doing
and what there is on offer. (p. 67).

Cinema has yet to provide us
with many films that are
works of art from start to finish:
its infatuation with stars,
the sensationalism of the zoom,
the twists and turns of plot
and the intrusion of pretty pictures
and witty dialogue, are all tempting
pitfalls for films which chase success
and, in so doing, eschew properly cinematic
means of expression. (p. 73).