One Merleau-Ponty, Not Two

In “A Phenomenological Life,” ¹ Renaud Barbaras argues that there is a break in the body of Meleau-Ponty’s work, and this is how he does so. He makes the claim that for the later Merleau-Ponty of The Visible and Invisible, ² the phenomenon of an experience “is really identical with that entity” that is presented within it. “This is why,” he continues, “Merleau-Ponty emphasizes that the important point about form is the conjunction … of an idea and an entity because the two are in fact ‘indiscernible’” (Life 220). Barbaras proceeds to state that for Merleau-Ponty “nature is ‘the self-production of meaning.’” According to Barbaras “this means … that in nature there is no difference between meaning and reality” (Life 222). And finally he claims that for Merleau-Ponty “reality is nothing other than its appearance, but appearance is an original and specific reality; it exists ‘in-itself’ as appearance and does not depend on consciousness. Reality, then, is not phenomenal because it refers to consciousness (this is still the position of [Merleau-Ponty’s earlier] The Structure of Behavior and Phenomenology of Perception); rather it refers to consciousness because it is in itself phenomenal: consciousness is a dimension 74or consequence of phenomenality, not a condition for it” (Life 226, my bracket addition).