ABSTRACT
What is phenomenology? Since Phenomenology of Perception (PhP) (Merleau-Ponty 1962) is, as the name suggests, a work of phenomenology, it is sensible to begin, as the text does, by addressing this question. But, as Merleau-Ponty notes, this is not an easy question to answer. Different phenomenologists conceive of phenomenology differently, and it is not always easy to decide who falls into this category in the first place. One might minimally characterise phenomenology as philosophy that investigates experience from a first-person point of view, that is, as it is presented to the subject. But this minimal definition is not very informative, and is also open to misunderstandings. To grasp Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical project, we need to understand his conception of phenomenology. This will be the focus of the present chapter. Merleau-Ponty puts forward his conception of phenomenology
in the preface to PhP. A figure who features prominently in the preface is Edmund Husserl. Merleau-Ponty’s influences are many and various. They include Henri Bergson, Simone de Beauvoir,
René Descartes, the Gestalt psychologists, Martin Heidegger, Immanuel Kant, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ferdinand de Saussure and Edith Stein, amongst many others. But his most important influence is undoubtedly Husserl. Edmund Husserl is widely thought of as the founder of phenomenology – although Husserl himself talks of having discovered an idea that is inherent, but not fully realised, in the work of previous philosophers. Merleau-Ponty considers himself to be merely bringing Husserl’s philosophical project to fruition. Whether or not Merleau-Ponty was correct about this matter is debated, and I will say more about their relation later. But it is clear that a grasp of MerleauPonty’s philosophical project requires an understanding of Husserl’s. Different conceptions of phenomenology can be found in Husserl’s work. The extent of the continuity between them is debated. We can identify two stages in Husserl’s work that are important for understanding Merleau-Ponty and his relation to Husserl: the first is found in Cartesian Meditations (Husserl 1988); the second is that which he offers in Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (Husserl 1970).
