Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Followers (598)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Born

in Rochefort-sur-Mer, Charente-Maritime, France

March 14, 1908

Died

May 03, 1961

Website

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/merleau-ponty/

Genre

Philosophy, Nonfiction

Influences

Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Levinas, Nietzsche, Bergson, Huss ...more

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French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger in addition to being closely associated with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. At the core of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy is a sustained argument for the foundational role that perception plays in understanding the world as well as engaging with the world. Like the other major phenomenologists Merleau-Ponty expressed his philosophical insights in writings on art, literature, and politics; however Merleau-Ponty was the only major phenomenologist of the first half of the Twentieth Century to engage extensively with the sciences, and especially with descriptive psychology. Because of this engagement, his writings have become influential with t French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger in addition to being closely associated with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. At the core of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy is a sustained argument for the foundational role that perception plays in understanding the world as well as engaging with the world. Like the other major phenomenologists Merleau-Ponty expressed his philosophical insights in writings on art, literature, and politics; however Merleau-Ponty was the only major phenomenologist of the first half of the Twentieth Century to engage extensively with the sciences, and especially with descriptive psychology. Because of this engagement, his writings have become influential with the recent project of naturalizing phenomenology in which phenomenologists utilize the results of psychology and cognitive science.

Merleau-Ponty was born in Rochefort-sur-Mer, Charente-Maritime. His father was killed in World War 1 when Merleau-Ponty was 3. After secondary schooling at the lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, Maurice Merleau-Ponty became a student at the École Normale Supérieure, where he studied alongside Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Simone Weil. He passed the agrégation in philosophy in 1930.

Merleau-Ponty first taught at Chartres, then became a tutor at the École Normale Supérieure, where he was awarded his doctorate on the basis of two important books: La structure du comportement (1942) and Phénoménologie de la Perception (1945).

After teaching at the University of Lyon from 1945 to 1948, Merleau-Ponty lectured on child psychology and education at the Sorbonne from 1949 to 1952. He was awarded the Chair of Philosophy at the Collège de France from 1952 until his death in 1961, making him the youngest person to have been elected to a Chair.

Besides his teaching, Merleau-Ponty was also political editor for Les Temps Modernes from the founding of the journal in October 1945 until December 1952.

Aged 53, he died suddenly of a stroke in 1961, apparently while preparing for a class on Descartes. He was buried in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

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Combine Editions
Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s books

Average rating: 4.12 · 10,737 ratings · 566 reviews · 122 distinct works • Similar authors

	Phenomenology of Perception by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Colin Smith (Translator) 4.18 avg rating — 6,375 ratings — published 1945 — 123 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The World of Perception by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Oliver Davis (Translator), Stéphanie Ménasé (Foreword), Thomas Baldwin (Introduction) 3.98 avg rating — 1,153 ratings — published 2002 — 38 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	L'Œil et l'Esprit 3.85 avg rating — 887 ratings — published 1960 — 46 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Visible and the Invisible (Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy) by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Alphonso Lingis (Translator), Claude Lefort (Editor) 4.37 avg rating — 653 ratings — published 1964 — 34 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Primacy of Perception: And Other Essays on Phenomenological Psychology, the Philosophy of Art, History and Politics (Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy) by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, William Cobb (Translator), James M. Edie (Editor) 4.07 avg rating — 382 ratings — published 1964 — 20 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Sense and Non-Sense by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Patricia Allen Dreyfus 3.98 avg rating — 193 ratings — published 1948 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Prose of the World (Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy) by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, John O'Neill (Translator), Claude Lefort (Editor) 4.21 avg rating — 146 ratings — published 1969 — 16 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Structure of Behavior 4.25 avg rating — 116 ratings — published 1942 — 35 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Humanism and Terror: An Essay on the Communist Problem by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, John O'Neill (Translator) 3.68 avg rating — 130 ratings — published 1947 — 32 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Signs by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Richard C. McCleary (Translator) 4.23 avg rating — 109 ratings — published 1960 — 19 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Maurice Merleau-Ponty…

Quotes by Maurice Merleau-Ponty (?)

“The body is our general medium for having a world.”
― Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception

tags: body, perspective, phenomenology

161 likes

“We know not through our intellect but through our experience.”
― Maurice Merleau-Ponty

96 likes

“The world is... the natural setting of, and field for, all my thoughts and all my explicit perceptions. Truth does not inhabit only the inner man, or more accurately, there is no inner man, man is in the world, and only in the world does he know himself. ”
― Maurice Merleau-Ponty

86 likes

See all Maurice Merleau-Ponty's quotes »

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