As was recently discussed on The Partially Examined Life podcast, French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961) has always been reported to fulfill some part of the phenomenological program by focusing on the body. Yet for all his talk, he seems to spout little more than truisms: for example, that to understand the way a human being exists in the world, one has to understand the human being's embodiment.
I want to see if there are more substantive claims from Merleau-Ponty. According to a philosophy professor of mine, his best work is The Structure of Behaviour (1942). I intend to read this, but first The Cambridge Companion to Merleau-Ponty (2005).
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