Merleau-Ponty's existential phenomenology and the realization of philosophy [Texte imprimé] / Bryan A. Smyth

"Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception - a canonical text of twentieth-century philosophy - concludes with an appeal to 'heroism' by citing a series of enigmatic sentences drawn from Saint-Exupe;ry's Pilote de guerre. Surprisingly, however, these lines are antithetical to the philosophical thrust of Merleau-Ponty's project. This book aims to explain this situation. Foregrounding liminal themes in Merleau-Ponty's thought that have been largely overlooked - e.g., sacrifice, death, myth, faith - and showing how these themes support Merleau-Ponty's reinterpretation of Husserlian phenomenology, Smyth shows that Merleau-Ponty's appeal to 'heroism' represents an extra-philosophical appeal to a historical purposiveness as a universal feature of human nature, and that Merleau-Ponty makes this appeal in virtue of his recognition of the intrinsic methodological limitations of philosophy as a theoretical endeavor. The book thus recovers the 'militant' dimension of Merleau-Ponty's thought. This sheds considerable new light on his work. It does so in a way that challenges some of the basic parameters of existing Merleau-Ponty scholarship by illuminating the intrinsic normativity of his existential phenomenology, and its epistemic reliance on forms of non-reason such as faith and myth. "-- Provided by publisher

"An original re-reading of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's existential phenomenology by way of a critical investigation of its crucial yet enigmatic references to 'heroism'"-- Provided by publisher

Bibliogr. p. [179]-197

Machine generated contents note: -- Preface: Re-reading Phenomenology of Perception \ Introduction: Flight from Phenomenology? \ 1. The Cosmic Humanism of Saint-Exupe;ry \ 2. Toward a Heroic Phenomenology \ 3. 'Man, the Hero' \ 4. Incarnation vs. Heroism \ Conclusion: Phenomenology and Heroism \ Supplementary Notes \ Bibiography \ Index