Merleau-Ponty the Metaphysician: The Living Body as a Plurality of Forces

We should not read Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception as an implicit or oblique ontology (as some have) but, rather, as a work of fundamental and explicit ontology continuous with The Structure of Behavior. Merleau-Ponty's masterwork presents an entirely new metaphysics built around the notion of Form: the body-world system comprises a plurality of forces striving for an equilibrium that is continually overcome. This new interpretation changes how we understand the living body and consciousness in Merleau-Ponty's work, as we see afresh how his new metaphysics displaces the older metaphysics built on the dualisms of subject/object and mind/body.