Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy

Appendix: The Multiple Meanings of Flesh in Merleau-Ponty’s Late Writings

Appendix: The Multiple Meanings of Flesh in Merleau-Ponty’s Late Writings For abbreviations of Merleau-Ponty’s titles, consult the table at the front of the volume. Summary of Findings from The Visible and the Invisible (March 1959–May 1961) Three primary senses of “flesh”: 1. Flesh as carnality. It is used this way 49 times, on my best interpretation. Examples: “Whether we are considering my relations with the things or my relations with the other . . . the question is . . . whether every relation between me and Being, even vision, even speech, is not a carnal relation with the flesh of the world.” (VI 83–84) “Yes or no: do we have a body—that is, not a permanent object of thought, but a flesh that suffers when it is wounded, hands that touch?” (VI 137) Some associated words: “surface,” “density,” “massive,” “mass,” “body,” “corporeity,” “carnal,” “weight,” “thickness,” “presence,” etc. Occurrences in the main text: VI 9, 61, 84, 88 (2×), 114 (2×), 118, 122, 123, 127 (3×), 131, 137, 138 (3×), 144 (3×), 146, 148, 151, 153 (4×). Subtotal: 28 times. Occurrences in the Working Notes: VI 181, 193, 200, 201, 202, 205, 209, 219, 220, 224, 239, 244, 248 (3×), 254, 258, 259 (3×), 274. Sub-total: 21 times. 2. Flesh as reversibility. It is used this way 46 times, on my best interpretation. Examples: “Once again, the flesh we are speaking of is not matter. It is the coiling over of the visible upon the seeing body, of the tangible upon the touching body, which is attested in particular when the body sees itself, touches itself seeing . . .” (VI 146) “But once we have entered into this strange domain, one does not see how there could be any question of leaving it. If there is an animation of the body; if the vision and the body are tangled up in one another . . . and • • • 202 Appendix if finally, in our flesh as in the flesh of things, the actual, empirical, ontic visible, by a sort of folding back, invagination, or padding, exhibits a visibility . . . that is not the proper contribution of a ‘thought’ but is its condition, a style . . .” (VI 152) Some associated words and phrases: “possibility,” “latency,” “envelop,” “cohesion,” “coiling over,” “folding back,” “prototype,” “paradox,” “constitutive paradox,” “style,” “archetype,” etc. Occurrences in the main text: VI 111, 114, 118, 123, 133, 135 (2×), 136, 137, 140, 144, 145, 146 (2×), 147 (2×), 148 (2×), 149, 152 (4×), 153. Subtotal: 24 times. Occurrences in the Working Notes: VI 205, 217, 248 (3×), 250 (6×), 255, 259, 261 (2×), 263, 267, 268, 271 (2×), 272, 274. Subtotal: 22 times. 3. Flesh as an element of being. It is used this way 8 times. Example: “The flesh is not matter, is not mind, is not substance. To designate it, we should need the old term ‘element,’ in the sense it was used to speak of water, air, earth, and fire, that is, in the sense of a general thing, midway between the spatio-temporal individual and the idea, a sort of incarnate principle . . .” (VI 139) Some associated words and phrases: “general principle,” “exemplar,” “concrete emblem of a general manner of Being.” Occurrences in the main text: VI 139 (4×), 140, 142, 145, 147. Suggestions and obscure usages: Flesh as mother, in the Working Notes: VI 267 (“Do a psychoanalysis of Nature : it is the flesh, the mother”). Flesh as horizonality, in the Working Notes: VI 271 (“The flesh of the world = its Horizonthaftigkeit (interior and exterior horizon) surrounding the thin pellicle of the strict visible between these two horizons”). Obscure usages in the main text: VI 111 (“the flesh of time”), 155 (“a sublimation of the flesh”). Obscure usages in the Working Notes: VI 253, 269, 270 (3×), 273. Summary of Findings in Other Late Writings Flesh in “The Philosopher and His Shadow” (late 1958): Flesh as carnality: PS 167 (2×), 169. • • • • • • • • • • The Multiple Meanings of Flesh in Merleau-Ponty’s Late Writings 203 Flesh in the Third Course on nature (1959–1960): Flesh as carnality: N 218, 223. Flesh as reversibility: N 209 (4×), 210 (2×), 217 (2×), 218 (2×), 223 (4×). Flesh in “Eye and Mind” (summer 1960): Flesh as carnality: EM 125 (3×), 127, 129, 131, 139, 142, 145. Flesh as reversibility: EM 129, 130. Flesh in the “Introduction” to Signs (February/November 1960): Flesh as carnality: IS 15 (3×), 16 (2×). Flesh as reversibility: IS 20...