Nature, Consciousness, and Metaphysics in Merleau-Ponty’s Early Thought
Ergo an Open Access Journal of Philosophy July 17, 2023 DOI: 10.3998/ergo.2912 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Citations | 1 |
| Key points | Argues that Merleau-Ponty's account of form in The Structure of Behavior depends on overlooked idealist commitments: having denied that forms are constituted by mind or emergent from matter, he likens form-constitution to an ideal process of intentional self-organization, a position the author says outstrips Gestalt psychology's ontology and belongs to a post-Kantian heritage. |
Abstract
La structure du comportement details consciousness-nature relations by navigating between realist and intellectualist alternatives. A phenomenological reading of form guides its attempt to formulate a view that does not reduce consciousness to matter or perceptual structure to a product of mind. I show that this strategy relies on hitherto overlooked idealist commitments. Forms are perceived objects whose intentional structure is intelligibly organized. Having denied that forms are constituted by mind or emergent from matter, Merleau-Ponty likens form-constitution to an ideal process of intentional self-organization. Despite recognizing that Gestalt psychology develops fruitful models of perceptual self-organization, and adopting the transcendental view that form is significant for consciousness, his revisionary interpretation of form outstrips these accounts’ ontologies of mind and nature, and is better understood in light of a post-Kantian philosophical heritage. These results cast Merleau-Ponty’s relation to the Gestalt, post-Kantian, and phenomenological traditions in new light, challenge naturalizing interpretations of Structure, and motivate a rethinking of the status of metaphysics in his early thought.