Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T06:58:34.296Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Domination and Dialogue in Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Abstract

Merleau-Ponty's claim in Phenomenology of Perception (1962) that the anonymous body guarantees an intersubjective world is problematic because it omits the particularities of bodies. This omission produces an account of “dialogue” with another in which I solipsistically hear only myself and dominate others with my intentionality. This essay develops an alternative to projective intentionality called “hypothetical construction,” in which meaning is socially constructed through an appreciation of the differences of others.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, Jeffner. 1982. Through the wild region: An essay in phenomenological feminism. Review of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry 18(1‐‐3): 241–56.Google Scholar
Bourgeois, Patrick L. and Rosenthal, Sandra B. 1990. Role taking, corporeal intersubjectivity, and self: Mead and Merleau‐Ponty. Philosophy Today 34(2): 117–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butler, Judith. 1989. Sexual ideology and phenomenological description: A feminist critique of Merleau‐Ponty's phenomenology of perception. In The thinking muse: Feminism and modem French philosophy, eds.Allen, Jeffner and Young, Iris Marion. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Code, Lorraine. 1995. Rhetorical spaces: Essays on gendered locations. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Dewey, John. 1988. Human nature and conduct. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Grosz, Elizabeth. 1994. Volatile bodies: Toward a corporeal feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Haber, Honi Fern. 1994. Beyond postmodern politics: Lyotard, Rorty, Foucault. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Irigaray, Luce. 1993. An ethics of sexual difference. Trans.Burke, Carolyn and Gill, Gillian C.Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Lugones, María C. 1991. On the logic of pluralist feminism. In Feminist ethics, ed. Card, Claudia. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Madison, Gary Brent. 1981. The phenomenology of Merleau‐Ponty. Athens: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Merleau‐Ponty, Maurice. 1962. The phenomenology of perception. Trans.Smith, Colin. New York: Humanities Press.Google Scholar
Merleau‐Ponty, Maurice. 1968. The visible and the invisible. Trans.Lingis, Alphonso. Evanston: North‐western University Press.Google Scholar
McMillan, Elizabeth. 1987. Female difference in the texts of Merleau‐Ponty. Philosophy Today 31(4): 359–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spelman, Elizabeth V. 1988. Inessential woman: Problems of exclusion in feminist thought. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Whitbeck, Caroline. 1983. A different reality: Feminist ontology. In Beyond domination: New perspectives on women and philosophy, ed. Gould, Carol C.Totowa NJ: Rowman and Allenheld.Google Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 1990. Throwing like a girl and other essays in feminist philosophy and social theory. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar