Includes bibliographical references (pages 179-197) and index.
Contents:
Preface: Re-reading Phenomenology of Perception -- Introduction: Flight from Phenomenology? -- 1. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, "Soliloquizing Angel" -- 2. Embodiment and Incarnation -- 3. Totality and Embodiment -- 4. Elements of an Incarnational Marxism -- 5. Contemporary Heroism -- Conclusion: Heroic Sublimation.
Summary:
"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.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.