Merleau-Ponty and Nishida: “Interexpression” As Motor-Perceptual Faith

This essay places Nishida Kitarō in dialogue with Maurice Merleau-Ponty regarding motor-perceptual aspects of artistic expression, and seeks to expand their concepts of negation from a perceptual to a motor-perceptual form of negation. This allows for a corresponding expansion of Merleau-Ponty’s notion of “perceptual faith” (foi perceptive) to motor-perceptual faith, and demonstrates how this concept resonates with the faithful form of expression put forth in Nishida’s concept “interexpression” (表現的関係).