The Philosophy Book

274

IN ORDER TO SEE THE

WORLD, WE MUST BREAK

WITH OUR FAMILIAR

ACCEPTANCE OF IT

MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY (1908–1961)

IN CONTEXT

BRANCH

Epistemology

APPROACH

Phenomenology

BEFORE

4th century BCE Aristotle

claims that philosophy begins

with a sense of wonder.

1641 René Descartes’

Meditations on First Philosophy

establishes a form of mind–

body dualism that Merleau-

Ponty will reject.

Early 1900s Edmund Husserl

founds phenomenology as a

philosophical school.

1927 Martin Heidegger writes

Being and Time, a major

influence on Merleau-Ponty.

AFTER

1979 Hubert Dreyfus draws

on the works of Heidegger,

Wittgenstein, and Merleau-

Ponty to explore philosophical

problems raised by artificial

intelligence and robotics.

T

he idea that philosophy

begins with our ability to

wonder at the world goes

back as far as ancient Greece.

Usually we take our everyday lives

for granted, but Aristotle claimed

that if we want to understand the

world more deeply, we have to put

aside our familiar acceptance of

things. And nowhere, perhaps, is

this harder to do than in the realm

of our experience. After all, what

could be more reliable than the

facts of direct perception?

French philosopher Merleau-

Ponty was interested in looking

more closely at our experience of

the world, and in questioning our

everyday assumptions. This puts

him in the tradition known as

phenomenology, an approach to

philosophy pioneered by Edmund

Our experience is

filled with puzzles and

contradictions.

Our everyday assumptions

prevent us from seeing these

puzzles and contradictions.

We must...

...put our everyday

assumptions to one side.

...relearn to look at

our experience.

In order to see the world,

we must break with our

familiar acceptance of it.