Perception, Expression, and History: The Social Phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty

by John O'Neill

In this commentary, John O'Neill concentrates upon three themes in the goal Merleau-Ponty set for himself, namely "to restore to things their concrete physiognomy, to organisms their individual ways of dealing with the world, and to subjectivity its inherence in history." O'Neill considers the three objectives in their original first, the study of animal and human psychology; then, the phenomenology of perception; and finally, certain extensions of these perspectives in the historical and social sciences.

101 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1970

About the author

John O’Neill, PhD (Stanford University; MS, Political Science, University of Notre Dame, 1957; BA, Sociology, London School of Economics, 1955), is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Sociology at York University (Toronto), where he also co-founded the Programme in Social and Political Thought in 1972.