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Time in the Phenomenology of Perception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2010

Eugene F. Bertoldi
Affiliation:
University of Waterloo

Extract

The chapter on time is one of the central investigations in Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception. Throughout preceding chapters of that work one meets the claim that theoretical difficulties raised by the type of description of the perceiving subject that Merleau-Ponty offers are to be resolved in the investigation of time. For example, in describing perception, it begins to seem that the perceiving subject is neither a pure for-itself, nor an in-itself, but rather belongs to some category intermediate between these two. How is such an ambiguity to be understood ? Merleau-Ponty tells us that:

On the level of being one will never understand that the subject must be at once naturans and naturatus, infinite and finite. But if we rediscover time beneath the subject, and if we relate to the paradox of time those of the body, the world, the thing and the other, we shall understand that there is nothing to understand beyond this.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1974

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References

1 Phénoménologie de la Perception. Paris: Gallimard, 1946. (Hereinafter referred to as PP.) All translations are my own; numbers in brackets refer to the English translation by Colin Smith (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962).Google Scholar

2 Ibid., pp. 142 and 402. (pp. 122 and 350)

3 Ibid., p. 419. (p. 365)

4 Ibid., p. 470. (p. 411)

5 Ibid., pp. 470–471. (pp. 411–412)

6 Ibid., p. 471. (p. 412)

7 Ibid., p. 472. (pp. 412–413)

8 Ibid., p. 472. (p. 413)

9 Ibid., p. 474. (p. 414)

10 Ibid., p. 474. (p. 415)

11 Ibid., p. 475. (p. 415–416)

12 Ibid., p. 475. (p. 416)

13 Ibid., p. 480. (p. 419)

14 Ibid., p. 479. (p. 419)

15 Ibid., p. 479. (p. 419)

16 Ibid., p. 478. (p. 418) My emphasis.

17 Ibid., p. 479. (p. 419)

18 Ibid., p. 478. (p. 418) see also p. 141 n. 4 (p. 121 n. 5)

19 Ibid., p. 484. (p. 423)

20 Ibid., p. 482. (p. 422) My emphasis.

21 Ibid., p. 487. (p. 426)

22 Ibid., p. 487. (p. 426)

23 Zaner, R., The Problem of Embodiment. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1964, pp. 224ff.Google Scholar

24 PP, p. 49. (p. 39) See also p. 51 (p. 41)

25 Ibid., p. 278. (p. 240)

26 Ibid., p. 428. (p. 374)

27 For example, contrast Ibid., pp. 470, 471, 482 with pp. 480, 484, 516. (pp. 411, 412, 421 with pp. 420, 423, 453)

28 Ibid., pp. 31 and 55. (pp. 23 and 44)

29 Ibid., p. 479. (p. 419)

30 Ibid., p. 478. (p. 418)

31 Ibid., p. 479. (p. 419)

32 Ibid., pp. 405 and 502. (pp. 452–453 and p. 440)

33 Husserl, E., Cartesian Meditations. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1960, §. 10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 PP, p. 451. (p. 394)

35 Husserl, E., Logical Investigations. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971, p. 817.Google Scholar