Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T02:39:57.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the philosophy of religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2020

JACK WILLIAMS Open the ORCID record for JACK WILLIAMS [Opens in a new window]
JACK WILLIAMS*
Affiliation:
School of Divinity, New College, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH1 2LX, UK
*
e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article proposes a new approach to employing Maurice Merleau-Ponty's philosophy in the philosophy of religion. Rather than finding a latent theology in Merleau-Ponty – as some interpreters do – this article argues that Merleau-Ponty's later ontology can provide the basis for a philosophical anthropology which can help us understand why human beings are drawn to religion and how this is expressed in affective and ritual practice. This ontology can help us to understand the notion of freedom as it applies to affective, embodied, and ritual religious practices and begins to sketch out how freedom might be understood in light of embodiment.

Type
Original Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 57 , Issue 4 , December 2021 , pp. 634 - 653
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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

Balagangadhara, S. N. (1994) ‘The Heathen in his Blindness. . .’: Asia, the West and the Dynamic of Religion (Leiden: Brill).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bannan, John F. (1966) ‘Merleau-Ponty on God’, International Philosophical Quarterly, 6, 341–365.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berman, Michael P. (2017) Merleau-Ponty and God: Hallowing the Hollow (Lanham MD: Lexington Books).Google Scholar
Carlisle, Clare (2013) ‘The question of habit in theology and philosophy: from hexis to plasticity’, Body and Society, 19, 30–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlisle, Clare (2018) ‘Habit, practice, grace: toward a philosophy of religious life’, in Ellis, Fiona (ed.) New Models of Religious Understanding (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 97–115.Google Scholar
Cotter, Christopher R. & Robertson, David G. (eds) (2016) After World Religions: Reconstructing Religious Studies (London: Routledge).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cottingham, John (2005) The Spiritual Dimension: Religion, Philosophy and Human Value (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dillon, M. C. (1997) Merleau-Ponty's Ontology, 2nd edn (Evanston IL: Northwestern University Press).Google Scholar
Edgar, Orion (2016) Things Seen and Unseen: The Logic of Incarnation in Merleau-Ponty's Metaphysics of Flesh (Cambridge: James Clarke).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellis, Fiona (ed.) (2018) New Models of Religious Understanding (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Fitzgerald, Timothy (1997) ‘A critique of “religion” as a cross-cultural category’, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, 9, 91–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallagher, Shaun (2005) How the Body Shapes the Mind (Oxford: Clarendon Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haugeland, John (1982) ‘Weak supervenience’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 19, 93–103.Google Scholar
Janicaud, Dominique (2000) ‘The theological turn of French phenomenology’, in Janicaud, Dominique, Henry, Michel, Ricoeur, Paul, Marion, Jean-Luc, Courtine, Jean-Francois, & Chretien, Jean-Louis, Phenomenology and the ‘Theological Turn’, Prusak, Bernard G. (tr.) (New York: Fordham University Press), 16–103.Google Scholar
Jolivet, Régis (1963) ‘The problem of God in the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty’, Philosophy Today, 7, 150–164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keane, Webb (2008) ‘The evidence of the senses and the materiality of religion’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 14, S110–S127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kearney, Richard (2010) ‘Merleau-Ponty and the sacramentality of the flesh’, in Semonovitch, Kascha & DeRoo, Neal (eds) Merleau-Ponty at the Limits of Art, Religion, and Perception (London: Continuum), 147–166.Google Scholar
Low, Douglas (2000) Merleau-Ponty's Last Vision: A Proposal for the Completion of The Visible and the Invisible (Evanston IL: Northwestern University Press).Google Scholar
Lowry, Atherton (1978) ‘Merleau-Ponty and the absence of God’, Philosophy Today, 22, 119–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Madison, Gary Brent (1981) The Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty: A Search for the Limits of Consciousness (Athens OH: Ohio University Press).Google Scholar
Matthews, Eric (2002) The Philosophy of Merleau-Ponty (Chesham: Acumen).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1963) In Praise of Philosophy, Wild, John & Edie, James M. (trs) (Evanston: Northwestern University Press).Google Scholar
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1964a) Sense and Non-Sense, Dreyfus, Hubert L. and Dreyfus, Patricia Allen (tr.) (Evanston: Northwestern University Press).Google Scholar
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1964b) Signs, McCleary, Richard C. (tr.) (Evanston IL: Northwestern University Press).Google Scholar
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1968) The Visible and the Invisible: Followed by Working Notes, Lefort, Claude (ed.) Lingis, Alphonso (tr.) (Evanston IL: Northwestern University Press).Google Scholar
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1974) ‘Eye and mind’, in Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, Phenomenology, Language and Sociology: Selected Essays of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, O'Neill, John (ed.), Dallery, Carleton (tr.) (London: Heinemann Educational Books), 280–311.Google Scholar
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (2014) Phenomenology of Perception, Landes, Donald A. (tr.) (London: Routledge).Google Scholar
Priest, Stephen (1998) Merleau-Ponty (London: Routledge).Google Scholar
Schaefer, Donovan (2015) Religious Affects: Animality, Evolution, and Power (Durham NC: Duke University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schilbrack, Kevin (2014) Philosophy and the Study of Religions: A Manifesto (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell).Google Scholar
Semenovitch, Kascha & Deroo, Neal (eds) (2010) Merleau-Ponty at the Limits of Art, Religion, and Perception (London: Continuum).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sherman, Jacob Holsinger (2014) Partakers of the Divine: Contemplation and the Practice of Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simpson, Christopher Ben (2014) Merleau-Ponty and Theology (London: Bloomsbury).Google Scholar
Smith, James K. A. (2013) Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works (Grand Rapids MI: Baker Academic).Google Scholar
Vandenbussche, Frans (1967) ‘The problem of God in the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty’, International Philosophical Quarterly, 7, 45–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar