Merleau-Ponty and Derrida : intertwining embodiment and alterity / Jack Reynolds.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Reynolds, Jack.

Series:

Series in Continental thought

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 1908-1961.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice.

Derrida, Jacques.

Physical Description:

xix, 233 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Athens : Ohio University Press, [2004]

Summary:

While there have been many essays devoted to comparing the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty with that of Jacques Derrida, there has been no sustained book-length treatment of these two French philosophers. Additionally, many of the essays presuppose an oppositional relationship between them, and between phenomenology and deconstruction more generally. Jack Reynolds systematically explores their relationship by analyzing each philosopher in terms of two important and related issues-embodiment and alterity. Focusing on areas with which they are not commonly associated (e.g., Derrida on the body and Merleau-Ponty on alterity), he makes clear that their work cannot be adequately characterized in a strictly oppositional way. Merleau-Ponty and Derrida: Intertwining Embodiment and Alterity proposes the possibility of a Merleau-Ponty-inspired philosophy that does not so avowedly seek to extricate itself from phenomenology but that also cannot easily be dismissed as simply another instantiation of the metaphysics of presence. Reynolds argues that there are salient ethico-political reasons for choosing an alternative that accords greater attention to our embodied situation.

Contents:

Part 1 Embodiment

1 Merleau-Ponty, the Body-Subject, and the Disciplining of Reflection 3

2 The Deconstruction of Oppositions: Speech-Writing, but Why Not Mind-Body? 26

3 The Later Philosophy of Merleau-Ponty and the Metaphysics of Presence 55

4 Habituality and Undecidability: A Comparison of Merleau-Ponty and Derrida on the Decision 83

Part 2 The Other

5 Solipsism and the Master-Slave Dialectic: An Onto-Ethical Dissonance between Sartre and Merleau-Ponty 105

6 Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, and the Alterity of the Other 124

7 The Other of Derridean Deconstruction: Levinas, Phenomenology, and the Problem of Responsibility 150

8 Possible and Impossible, Self and Other, and the Reversibility of Merleau-Ponty and Derrida 173.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [219]-229) and index.

ISBN:

0821415921

OCLC:

55744501