The critical intertwining of historicity: historicity as phenomenological and existential crisis in Merleau-Ponty’s works

Autores

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.36517/Argumentos.29.2

Palavras-chave:

Merleau-Ponty. Historicity. Existencial Crisis.

Resumo

Merleau-Ponty’s account of historicity is significant both as a phenomenological account and as an existential account of our historical situation.  Of course, these aspects of his work are not mutually exclusive, but intertwined.  And each aspect contributes to the sense of crisis of human historicity.  We will first consider the phenomenological crisis of historicity—which is to say, we will consider the crisis of historicity phenomenologically.  This is the attempt to reveal the conditions of the possibility of history from within history or the structure of our historical situation—where Merleau-Ponty’s position departs from Husserlian phenomenology.  Next, we will consider the existential crisis of historicity—which is to say, we will consider the crisis of historicity existentially.  This is the attempt to understand the imperative that things matter to us historically.  Finally, we will briefly indicate the importance of these aspects of our historicity as a critical intertwining.  This critical intertwining reveals the mutual encroachment of the “how” and the “why” of our historicity, which Merleau-Ponty describes at the end of his career as chiasmic existence within the flesh of the world.  The critical intertwining as interrogation of our historical being provides the "who" "what" "when" and "where" of our historicity.

Biografia do Autor

Duane Davis, University of North Carolina at Asheville

Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. He was Distinguished Scholar in Residence in Curitiba, Brazil in 2011, and the Ruth and Leon Feldman Research Scholar in 2013-14. He served as Assistant Director of the annual meeting of the International Merleau-Ponty Circle in 1990, and Director in 2001 and 2010, and, with Ivan Kolev, co-directed a conference commemorating the hundredth anniversary of Merleau-Ponty’s birth in Sophia, Bulgaria in 2008.  He has published numerous articles in recent French thought, is co-editor (with William Hamrick) of Merleau-Ponty and the Art of Perception (SUNY Press, 2016) and is editor of Merleau-Ponty's Later Works and Their Practical Implications: The Dehiscence of Responsibility (Humanity Books, 2001). He is currently working on a book project, Reversibilities of the Flesh.

Referências

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DAVIS, D. H. “The Art of Revolutionary Praxis: Ghosting a History without Shadows”. In: International Sartre Studies, 27:1, July, 2021, pp.76-98.

DAVIS, D. H. “The Philosopher of Modern Life: Baudelaire, Merleau-Ponty, and the Art of Phenomenological Critique”. In: DAVIS, D. H.; HAMROCK, W. S. (Eds.). Merleau-Ponty and the Art of Perception. State University of New York Press, 2016, pp. 165-185.

DAVIS, D. H. (Eds.). Merleau-Ponty’s Later Thought and its Practical Implications: The Dehiscence of Responsibility, Humanity Books, Prometheus Press, 2001.

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MERLEAU-PONTY, M. “‘Les Fondateurs’ and ‘La Découverte de l'Histoire’: Two Short Pieces Excluded from ‘Everywhere and Nowhere’”. Trans. Duane H. Davies. In: Man and World, Vol.25, No.2 (April 1992), pp.203-209.

MERLEAU-PONTY, M. L’Oeil et l’esprit. Paris: Gallimard, 1964b.

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MERLEAU-PONTY, M. Phénoménologie de la perception. Paris: Gallimard, 1960a.

MERLEAU-PONTY, M. Sens et non-sens. Paris: Gallimard, 1960b.

MERLEAU-PONTY, M. Signes. Paris: Gallimard, 1960c.

MERLEAU-PONTY, M.; ALQUIÉ, F. Les Philosophers Célèbres. Paris: Mazenod, 1956.

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Publicado

2023-01-01

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Dossiê Crise