ABSTRACT

Intersubjectivity is one of the major topics discussed in phenomenological research, and it is also one of the cornerstones of Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of reality as a whole. The world is necessarily a world for us. Also, according to Merleau-Ponty, the rather sharp distinction between perception and imagination, deriving from the classical approach to intentionality, should be revisited, and this revision impinges on his ontological reassessment of what reality is. This chapter aims at showing the deep interconnection between these two topics, intersubjectivity and the interweaving between the real and the imaginary, in Merleau-Ponty’s thought. It discusses Merleau-Ponty’s revision of the distinction between perception and imagination, in order to show that the imaginary constitution of the real, envisaged in his ontology of the flesh, is deeply connected with the revision of how we should understand intersubjectivty. In turn, this revision requires a reassessment of the status of subjectivity itself, based on a radicalization of the phenomenological reduction. The chapter shows the implications of this phenomenology of intersubjectivity and the imaginary for the reassessment the notion of reality, notably emphasizing how its social dimension cannot be considered as separated from its natural bonds.