At the end of the seminar, you will be able to:

• outline the most important questions and concepts of Heidegger's phenomenology;
• describe a number of basic phenomenological concepts and questions;
• use the phenomenological method;
• view philosophical problems from a phenomenological perspective.

Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception

This course proposes to introduce to Merleau-Ponty’s thought and more precisely to his ontological project based on the study of perception and embodiment.  A thorough reading of extended selections from the Phenomenology of the perception will constitute the backbone of the course. We will examine MP’s relationships with phenomenology, existentialism and Gestalt psychology, his dialogue with Husserl, Heidegger, Beauvoir and Sartre. We will study his criticism of empiricism and intellectualism and analyse the main traits of the original theory that he starts to develop in this work: the claim that the phenomenological reduction can never be completed, the rejection of the absolute transcendental subject, the acknowledgment of embodiment as a necessary characteristic of every subjectivity, which entails remarkable consequences regarding the conception of truth, science, ethics and politics. We will show how, through concrete reflections on the body, perception, language, feelings, intercoporeity, sexuality and actions, the ontological theory that will be thematised and fully developed in Merleau-Ponty’s later works is already at stake in this book. MP’s Phenomenology of perception compels us to radically call into question the classical oppositions between the real and the imaginary, subject and object, mind and body, nature and culture and, thus, offers a challenging introduction to the key issues of contemporary philosophy.