Merleau-Ponty, Maurice

(1908–1961)

French phenomenologist, who became professor at the Collège de France in 1952. His major work, the Phénoménologie de la perception (1945, trs. as The Phenomenology of Perception, 1962) anticipates many of the concerns of later analytical philosophy of perception. In particular, Merleau-Ponty emphasizes the way in which our experience does not form a shut-off, private domain, but a way of being-in-the-world; we live our lives in the perceptual milieu of a human world, or Lebenswelt, irreducible to pure or private consciousness. Merleau-Ponty's work draws upon empirical psychology as well as the tradition of Husserl to explore the experiential relationship that we have with the world. His book is particularly notable for its extended and illuminating description of our relationship with our own bodies in perception and action. See also body.