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38th out of 249 books
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Phenomenology of Perception
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 s...more
Paperback, 4th Reprint, 544 pages
Published
May 3rd 2005
by Routledge
(first published 1945)
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In some ways this may be the most phenomenal philosophy book that I have ever read. In it, Merleau-Ponty attempts to present a description of how human beings perceive the world in which they live. He is often surprisingly successful. The evidence for me came in a startling manner. While reading the section about perceiving the body, I had an experience for which I have no words, but that perhaps comes closest to what certain mystics would call enlightenment. But it was a completely bodily enlig...more
"What is phenomenology? It may seem strange that this question has still to be asked half a century after the first works of Husserl" So says Merleau-Ponty in the opening pages of `Phenomenology of Perception,' perhaps the major work of phenomenology after `Being and Time.' Merleau-Ponty sought, rather brilliantly, to redirect attention to the human body as the locus of our being-in-the-world for phenomenological inquiry. Unfortunately, I am convinced that Merleau-Ponty's efforts to tu...more
Kevin
rated it
Recommends it for:
those interested in deep, intricate philosophy, phenomenology and psychology
This book may not interest the casual reader and involves wading through (and re-reading) dense and nuanced arguments, but for those who are curious about phenomenology or alternative approaches to psychology from the "black box" input-output processing model typified by behaviorism, this is a book well worth spending some time with. Merleau-Ponty challenges the bifurcation of immanence and transcendence the emerged out of the Cartesian-Newtonian paradigm, such as the subject-object o...more
I haven't time to find the exact quote but somewhere in this book Merleau-Ponty - or 'Merleau-Ponty-Ponty' as I have affectionately come to think of him - states that all the best writers never read what they have written, he then goes on to do his very best at disproving this theory. But to be fair there is some really great stuff in this book: once you get past the first couple of hundred pages and get to the chapters on space and temporality this book works as a thoroughly absorbing med...more
Along with Heidegger, Sartre, Beauvoir, and Levinas, Merleau-Ponty is an "existential phenomenologist": a philosopher concerned with the experiences that constitute human existence. He's often overlooked in favor of Heidegger or Sartre, but this is unfair; his analysis of human embodiment not only build on theirs, but go much, much further.
Phenomenology of Perception is concerned with the first-person experience of being embodied, or of having a body. Merleau-Ponty shows how...more
Phenomenology of Perception is concerned with the first-person experience of being embodied, or of having a body. Merleau-Ponty shows how...more
Collection of essays on different forms of expression - from gestures to a word. Merleau - Ponty uses methods from different of science and humanities, especially biology, psychology or linguistics. According to the philosopher the most important expression in human disposition is the expression of word. All essays shows the general form of new conception of theory of culture - original idea of the philosopher.
There is so much interesting stuff in this book, plus it is heavy enough to be used as a doorstop! Love this book....
Dauntingly large, but remarkably prescient; often a joy to read, and containing immense depths. Justifiably a classic.
One of the most thought-provoking books I have ever read
This should required reading for humans. and robots.
started me on my road to thesis...
rereading bits and pieces...
Liz
is currently reading it
Rereading slowly...
Rebind.
Finally finished this thing! No insightful comments at this time, but this two-month reading experience was a good one. Reading phenomenology is especially good in a variety of settings, mindsets, fevers, loud rooms...
Anyone who's having trouble don't put it down. It's not really that hard to read, it just might take a while. Philosophy is metabolized slowly. (And poo poo to the reviewer who said she "read it in a few hours." A novel can be read and enjoyed in a matte...more
Anyone who's having trouble don't put it down. It's not really that hard to read, it just might take a while. Philosophy is metabolized slowly. (And poo poo to the reviewer who said she "read it in a few hours." A novel can be read and enjoyed in a matte...more
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If you want to read a book about phenomenology that is both informative and engaging, I would recommend this one. Husserl's book is way too dense, and the writing is just very out-dated therefore making his ideas even more abstract and hard to understand. The examples he provides also didn't clear up any confusion I had. This book is far more better.
Here, friends, have a little philosophy from my list of favorites... This book is both profound and extremely accessible / readable / not 'full-of-itself' (like guattari). Read it in a span of a few hours, add a bit of Plato's "Theaetetus" for good measure. If you're architecturally minded, also add Steven Holl's "Phenomenology of Perception" to the mix. If this isn't good chemistry, I don't know what chemistry is.
I picked up this book to get a better understanding on phenomenology after learning about it's applications in architecture. It's a big volume and I chose to read excerpts here and there that peaked my interest and were relevant to architecture. Very interesting although you have to pick up philosophy/psychology lingo along the way. I'll be picking it back up here and there from now.
I probably would have rated it higher if I could have understood it. But those five pages sure are useful...
Micah Adams
rated it
Recommends it for:
Anyone trying to figure out what it means to be concious
Shelves:
philosophy
I have no authority on Phenomenology, so I won't comment on it. I also have no authority to argue for or against Merleau-Ponty's views, what I can say is that this book served as my introduction into Phenomenology, and that it was a center piece to a very important time in my life.
So, you should rewad it.
But I recommend you read it in a group setting.
So, you should rewad it.
But I recommend you read it in a group setting.
Even if you just read the preface and introduction, this notoriously poor translation of Phenomenology of Perception will change you. By confronting our most primordial existential disposition of being-in-the-world, we learn that the conventional subject-object dialectic cannot capture what it is to be.
Absolutely fascinating look into phenomenology, although it took me ages to work through this massive volume. My philosophy advisor did advise me to read The Structure of Behavior first, and one day I plan to finally do such. This was a more refreshing read after the Heidegger we tackled before it!
Geoff Cain
added it
A tough book to get through but one of the most important in philosophy. A great antidote to the neo-facist French "philosophers" of the 1970s. Merleau-Ponty is important for both my literary writing AND my work as an instructional designer. It is a lovely connection.
I've never made it all the way through, just picked out the parts I like, but I'm determined finally finish the darn thing this time. I've been struck by the comments he makes form time to time on history, which run counter from what you'd expect from a phenomenologist.
Yammerskooner
added it
This is packed with more detail than you could ever want. Pretty fricking slow-moving, but it's nevertheless mandatory reading for someone with my interests. And I can't say I'm at all bored with it as a whole. It's just dense.
Better than the doors of perception. By a long shot. (Even has a good bit about his experience of mescaline.)
For my Merleau-Ponty class that I've been waiting a year to take!
Enormous. Baffling. Dense. Important.
read before Heidegger
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Maurice Merleau-Ponty (pronounced [mɔʁis mɛʁlopɔ̃ti] in French; March 14, 1908 – May 3, 1961) was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger in addition to being closely associated with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. At the core of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy is a sustained argument for the foundational role that perception plays in u...more
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“The body is our general medium for having a world.”
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7 people liked it
“Being established in my life, buttressed by my thinking nature, fastened down in this transcendental field which was opened for me by my first perception, and in which all absence is merely the obverse of a presence, all silence a modality of the being of sound, I enjoy a sort of ubiquity and theoretical eternity, I feel destined to move in a flow of endless life, neither the beginning nor the end of which I can experience in thought, since it is my living self who think of them, and since thus my life always precedes and survives itself.”
—
3 people liked it
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