Journal of Philosophical Investigations

نوع مقاله : مقاله علمی- پژوهشی

نویسنده

دکتری فلسفه، دانشگاه فلوریدای غربی، پنسیلوانیا، آمریکا

چکیده

Somewhat surprisingly, a number of scholars have recently claimed to find an implied theology in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy. This surprising because the author does not state anywhere in the body of his work that he seeks to align his philosophy with a theology, in fact he states just the opposite, as we shall see. While it is true that Merleau-Ponty does dialogue with certain views of Christianity, and while it is true that he does argue for a religion that treats the divine as “horizontal” rather than “vertical,” that is, as part of human life rather than beyond it, the sympathetic goal of his reflection here is to suggest a Christianity that is more humane and less dogmatically hierarchical, that is more centered in human experience rather than an absolute other. His goal here is certainly not to claim this theology as an essential part of his philosophy. As he says, the role of the philosopher should not be to prove or disprove the existence of God but to consider what God means to human beings in the movement of history. A number of Merleau-Ponty’s own texts will be consider here in some detail along with a variety of texts that claim that his works harbor a hidden theology.

کلیدواژه‌ها

موضوعات

عنوان مقاله [English]

Merleau-Ponty, Theology and GOD

نویسنده [English]

  • Douglas Low

PhD of Philosophy, University of West Florida, Pensacola, USA

چکیده [English]

Somewhat surprisingly, a number of scholars have recently claimed to find an implied theology in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy. This surprising because the author does not state anywhere in the body of his work that he seeks to align his philosophy with a theology, in fact he states just the opposite, as we shall see. While it is true that Merleau-Ponty does dialogue with certain views of Christianity, and while it is true that he does argue for a religion that treats the divine as “horizontal” rather than “vertical,” that is, as part of human life rather than beyond it, the sympathetic goal of his reflection here is to suggest a Christianity that is more humane and less dogmatically hierarchical, that is more centered in human experience rather than an absolute other. His goal here is certainly not to claim this theology as an essential part of his philosophy. As he says, the role of the philosopher should not be to prove or disprove the existence of God but to consider what God means to human beings in the movement of history. A number of Merleau-Ponty’s own texts will be consider here in some detail along with a variety of texts that claim that his works harbor a hidden theology.

کلیدواژه‌ها [English]

  • Merleau-Ponty
  • philosophy of religion
  • theology
  • Christianity
  • GOD
Allen, Blake. (2021). Merleau-Ponty: Beauty, Phenomenology, and the ‘Theological Turn’. Theory, Culture & Society, 38(3): 71-90.
Berman, Michael. (2017). Merleau-Ponty and God: Hallowing the Hollow. New York: Lexington Books.
Edgar, Orion. (2012). Things Seen and Unseen: The Logic of Incarnation in Merleau-Ponty's Metaphysics of Flesh. Doctoral Dissertation, The University of Nottingham. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.
Edgar, Orion. (2016). Things Seen and Unseen: The Logic of Incarnation in Merleau-Ponty's Metaphysics of Flesh. Eugene: Cascade Books.
Janicaud, Dominique. (2000). Phenomenology and the “theological turn”: the French debate. New York: Fordham University Press.
Johnson, Galen. (2010). The Retrieval of the Beautiful: Thinking through Merleau-Ponty’s Aesthetics. Evanston: Northwestern.
Kearney, Richard. (2010). Merleau-Ponty and the sacramentality of the flesh. in Kascha Semonovitch and Neal DeRoo (Eds.), Merleau-Ponty at the Limits of Art, Religion, and Perception (pp.147-166). London: Continuum.
Low, Douglas. (2004). The Continuing Relevance of the Structure of Behavior. International Philosophical Quarterly 44 (3): 411-430.
Low, Douglas. (2009). Merleau-Ponty's Criticism of Heidegger. Philosophy Today 53 (fall): 273-293.
Low, Douglas. (2021a). Merleau-Ponty’s Lectures on Heidegger. Research in Phenomenology 51(1): 123-147.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. (1945). Phénoménologie de la perception. Paris: La Librairie Gallimard, NRF. https://s3.amazonaws.com/arena-attachments/773203/37abbc34cef050898a50dd5b1ac23777.pdf
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. (1962). Phenomenology of Perception. (Colon Smith, Translation with corrections by Forrest Williams) London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. (1963a). In Praise of Philosophy, translated by John Wild and James Edie, Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. (1963b). The Structure of Behavior, Translated by Alden Fisher, Boston: Beacon Press.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. (1964a). The Primacy of Perception and Other Essays on Phenomenological Psychology and the Philosophy of Art, History and Politics, Translated by James Edie, Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. (1964b). Sense and Nonsense, Translated by Hubert Dreyfus and Patricia Allen Dreyfus, Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. (1964c). Signs, Translated by Richard Mc Cleary, Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. (1968). The Visible and the Invisible, Translated by Alphonso Lingis, Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. (1970). Themes from the Lectures at the Collège de France, 1952–1960, Translated by John O’Neill, Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. (1973). The Prose of the World, Translated by John O'Neil, Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. (1992). Text and Dialogues. New Jersey: Humanities Press.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. (1993). Eye and Mind. in Galen Johnson (Ed.) The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader: Philosophy and Painting, (pp. 121-150). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. (2003). Nature: Course Notes from the Collège de France, Translated by Robert Vallier, Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. (2007). Man and Adversity. in Ted Toadvine and Leonard Lawlor (Eds.), The Merleau-Ponty Reader (pp. 189-207), Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. (2012). Phenomenology of Perception, Translated by Donald A. Landes, London and New York: Routledge.
Rabil, Albert. (1967). Merleau-Ponty Existentialist of the Social World. New York, Columbia University Press.
Simpson, Christopher Ben. (2013). Merleau-Ponty and Theology. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Vatican II: A Half-Century Later, a Mixed Legacy (2012). in National Public Radio (NPR), October 11. https://www.npr.org/2012/10/11/162594956/vatican-ii-a-half-century-later-a-mixed-legacy
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