Merleau-Ponty's Ontology 2E: Second Edition (SPEP) (Paperback)

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Product Description

Originally published by Indiana University Press in 1988, this is a revised second edition containing a new preface plus an additional chapter on "Truth in Art". Dillon's general thesis is that Merleau-Ponty has developed the first genuine alternative to ontological dualism seen in Western philosophy. From his early work on the philosophical significance of the human body to his later ontology of the flesh, Merleau-Ponty shows that the perennial problems growing out of dualistic conceptions of mind and body, subject and object, immanence and transcendence can be resolved within the framework of a new way of thinking based on the exemplar of the worldly embodiment of thought.

About the Author

M.C. Dillon Binghamton University, USA

Product Details

• Paperback: 306 pages
• Publisher: Northwestern University Press; Revised edition (January 21, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081011528X
• ISBN-13: 978-0810115286
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #937,561 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great explication of MP but a bit unfair to 'postmodernism', October 21, 1999

By A Customer

Dillon gives an illuminating discussion of the 'philosophical dualism' - e.g. in Descartes, Hume, Kant and Sartre - against which Merleau-Ponty is arguing. Dillon's treatment of Merleau-Ponty's central concepts is at once lucid and fair. I think this book would be ideal either as an introduction or as a supplement to MP's thought (Dillon offers some persuasive criticisms of MP as well). My only criticism is that Dillon's picture of 'poststructualism', of which Derrida is taken to be the 'whipping boy', is perhaps a bit unfair -- but the few oversimplifications are just as informative as Dillon's many accute insights into the "postmodern fervor." Anyone interested in MP should certainly check this mama out.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fabulous work., June 13, 2003

By	Jason Jordan (Corvallis, OR United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Merleau-Ponty's Ontology (Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy) (Hardcover)

Pay no heed to the pretentiousness of what one reviewer decried as "bipolar" (good guys vs. bad guys) philosophy, this is the greatest secondary philosophical text I have ever read, and perhaps what really irritated the previous reviewer wasn't Dillon's "no real understanding of Husserl," or the "[tired] postmodernism-bashing [that] shows no real understanding of the positions under discussion", but rather was Dillon's own palatable disdain for such intellectual pretentiousness reverberating throughout his text. Rather than writing in ego-gratifying but incomprehensible prose, Dillon authors a wonderfully open and accessible philosophical text that clearly and cogently explains the complex issues under discussion, a feat that is ultimately more difficult than the all to common obscure and esoteric ramblings of modern philosophy.

Far from being a "bipolar" text, this book offers an intricate examination of the historical progression and ultimate failure of bipolar/reductionist thought in the western tradition, be it mind vs. body dualism, immanence vs. transcendence, or linguistic realism vs. conventionalism. Dillon demonstrates convincingly how polarizing (and ultimately second-order) constructions of reality ultimately betray the underlying ontological reality which they were designed to explain by rendering truth and judgment valuation impossible. He then goes on to explain why he believes that the thought of Merleau-Ponty, grounded on the ontological primacy of the phenomena, avoids this reifying of second-order abstractions that create ontological polarization and collapse reality into exclusive spheres of immanence or transcendence.

Moreover, contrary to what was said in the past review, Merleau-Ponty is never deified in the book as someone who "fell from the sky one day to solve all of our philosophical problems". Dillon has obvious disagreements with aspects of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy (read "The Body In Its Sexual Being" from M-P's Phenomenology of Perception and then Dillon's Beyond Romance for one example) that are not presented in this work due to its nature as a secondary text on Merleau-Ponty's ontology, published at a time when such a topic was rarely discussed. Still, this book never even approaches presenting Merleau-Ponty in such a god-like portrait; rather Dillon simply but methodically presents the case that Merleau-Ponty, unlike Sartre among others, offers a true phenomenological ontology grounded on the primacy of the phenomena that (if considered seriously) presents a real and unavoidable challenge to polarizing/reductionist ontological theories, including those that came to the fore after Merleau-Ponty's death in the "linguistic turn".

As the reviewer from the Moon says: "if good philosophy is what you want, it's rarely so bipolar."

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great, July 11, 2003

By	Mattias Borjesson - See all my reviews

Dillon puts Merleau-Ponty in an historical persepctive and his thesis is that Merleau-Ponty's ontology is the first non-dualistic in western philosophy. Were Husserl failed becuse of his cartesian constraints Merelau-Ponty succedes. Dillon's masterful understanding of western philosophy and its limitations leads him to see Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology as the only true alternative to traditional thought. He now want us to understand this, and when we do continue in Merleau-Pontys direction and evolve philosophy from the constraints av tradtional dualistic thought.