Phenomenology and The Cognitive Sciences, Oct 28, 2019
Page 12, fifth paragraph, line 31: the location Bthere are:^has been deleted and placed in the th... more Page 12, fifth paragraph, line 31: the location Bthere are:^has been deleted and placed in the third paragraph, line 13. Publisher's note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Mar 15, 2021
ABSTRACT According to a recent and prominent view, a ‘we-perspective’ arises out of a dyadic I-yo... more ABSTRACT According to a recent and prominent view, a ‘we-perspective’ arises out of a dyadic I-you relation involving a special form of reciprocity in which I relate to another as a you – as somebody who is also attending and addressing me. As important as this argument might be, one obvious limitation lies in that it typically applies to dyadic forms of ‘we’ which are bound to the here and now of face-to-face interactions between ‘ad hoc pairs of individuals’. Drawing inspiration from Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason and Freud’s Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, I will argue that in order to trace a way out of this impasse, one needs to shift the theoretical focus from dyadic face-to-face (immediate) relations of reciprocity between I and You, self and other to ternary relations of ‘mediated reciprocity’ involving the figure and the functions of a third party (le tiers).
Aisthesis. Pratiche, linguaggi e saperi dell’estetico, Jun 16, 2019
This article examines the particular aesthetic experience brought about by soundwalks. In each ca... more This article examines the particular aesthetic experience brought about by soundwalks. In each case, the point of departure is the phenomenological analysis of two case study: Janet Cardiff 's Walks and the audio-tours Remote x by Rimini Protokoll. Drawing upon Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, I will examine the conflicts of perception and the peculiar shift from one order of perception to another that punctuate the spectator's walking, as well as the intertwining of the real and the imaginary coming into being in such performances and experienced at the very level of his bodily inscription in space. More specifically, my aim is to address the challenge that the aesthetic experience here in question sets to Husserl's phenomenology of perception and to show how the extension of the notion of perception achieved by Merleau-Ponty makes it possible to overcome the paradox.
La realtà del legame contro l'a priori della distinzione Come Merleau-Ponty sottolinea nel capito... more La realtà del legame contro l'a priori della distinzione Come Merleau-Ponty sottolinea nel capitolo della Fenomenologia della percezione intitolato "L'altro e il mondo umano", la relazione con l'altro è incomprensibile se la si pensa come il 'faccia a faccia' di un soggetto, concepito come pura coscienza, con un oggetto, posto di fronte a lui e dispiegato davanti al suo sguardo senza segreti. "L'esistenza dell'altro", scrive il filosofo, "costituisce una difficoltà e uno scandalo per il pensiero oggettivo" 2. Un tale pensiero oggettivo, così come la filosofia riflessiva che ne è l'opposto speculare, riflette la struttura dell'ontologia classica, derivata da Cartesio, che oppone un Soggetto come puro essere per sé (presenza a sé) e come coscienza costituente a un Oggetto inerte pensato come puro essere in sé, che si offre interamente davanti al suo sguardo. Affinché l'altro sia comprensibile, bisogna rinunciare alla "biforcazione della 'coscienza di' e dell'oggetto" 3 e prendere finalmente sul serio la realtà del legame, che abbiamo vissuto durante l'infanzia, nella forma di una "tranquilla coesistenza" 4 con gli altri. Come Merleau-Ponty scriverà in una Nota di lavoro del Visibile e l'invisible, "In realtà né io né l'altro siamo dati come positivi, come soggettività positive. Si tratta di due antri, di due aperture, di due scene in cui accadrà qualcosa,-e che appartengono entrambi allo stesso mondo, alla scena dell'Essere" 5. E aggiunge in una nota dello stesso anno: "Se si parte dal visibile e dalla visione, dal sensibile e dal sentire, si ottiene una idea completamente nuova della 'soggettività' : non ci sono più 'sintesi', c'è un contatto con l'essere attraverso le sue modulazioni, o i suoi rilievi-L'altro non è più tanto una libertà vista dall'esterno come destino e fatalità, un soggetto rivale di un soggetto, ma è preso nel circuito che lo collega a noi-E questo mondo ci è comune, è intermondo-E c'è transitivismo per generalità" 6. Nel campo della psicoanalisi, Melanie Klein deve risolvere un problema analogo, nel momento in cui descrive la genesi della prima relazione con l'altro, incentrata, durante la "posizione schizo-paranoide" (0-4 mesi), sul seno materno. In effetti, la distinzione tra un soggetto e un oggetto, così come la nozione di oggetto perdono la loro pertinenza in una relazione arcaica di questo tipo, che è plasmata dall'alternanza tra l'introiezione e la proiezione, e che implica un va-e-vieni fluido tra situazioni e oggetti interni ed esterni, parti allontanate da sé e integrate in sé. Tuttavia, Klein ricorre a un sistema che, come scrive Jean Laplanche, "fonctionne par jeu de paires opposées permettant toutes les mécaniques et toutes les stéréotypies" 7 e non riesce ad eliminare l'inadeguatezza esistente tra i 124 brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk
The kind of collective improvisation attained by free jazz at the beginning of the sixties appear... more The kind of collective improvisation attained by free jazz at the beginning of the sixties appears interesting from the perspective of contemporary debates on collective intentionality for several reasons. The most notable of these, is that it holds a mirror up to what analytical philosophers of action identify as "the complexly interwoven sets of collective intentions" that make a group more than the sum of its parts. But at the same time, free jazz poses a challenge to these philosophical theories of collective intentionality, because what happens is not planned in advance but arises from spontaneous interactions in the group. The second and no less decisive reason is that jazz musicians act together in a very distinctive way, which casts into clear relief the interplay between togetherness and agonism, individual freedom and group commitment, which is contained in every human interaction. In other words, in free jazz we find what Hannah Arendt calls the "paradoxical" or "twofold" character of "human plurality." Starting with the analysis of two paradigmatic case studies-Charles Mingus's Folk Forms No. 1 and Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation-my main concern in this paper is to provide a phenomenological account of the individual-yet-plural intentionality that emerges and runs through the improvisatory process in the free jazz case. After having made the negative point that this phenomenon represents a challenge to the analytical theories of collective intentionality, I shall argue that it can be accounted for from a phenomenological perspective. My basic thesis is that the overall cohesiveness of the improvisatory process must be regarded as a meaningful realization of an overall feeling, shared and shaped together by musicians over time-and not as the execution of an advanced plan.
Phenomenology and The Cognitive Sciences, Oct 2, 2019
The kind of collective improvisation attained by the "free jazz" at the beginning of the sixties ... more The kind of collective improvisation attained by the "free jazz" at the beginning of the sixties sets a challenge to analytic theories of collective intentionality, that emphasize the role played by future-directed plans in the interlocking and interdependent intentions (and attitudes) of the individual participants, because in the free jazz case the performers' interdependence or [interplay] stems from an intuitive understanding between musicians. Otherwise said: what happens musically is not planned in advance, but arises from spontaneous interactions in the group. By looking at the way jazz improvisers take up the challenge of making music together without a preconceived notion as to what kind of effect they will achieve and without a pre-set code of agreements (related to theme, chord patterns and chorus lengths), my aim has been to clarify what kind of strategiesother than advanced action plans and joint commitmentsare used by improvising musicians to integrate their improvisations into a unified shared activity. In developing this proposal I initially drawn pre-theoretically on one paradigmatic study case-Ornette Coleman's double quartet Free Jazz, A collective Improvisation (1960) and brought it in conversation with Husserl's phenomenology of time. In a final move, I brought this phenomenological frame into dialogue with some recent readings of the predictive coding model. All in all, what we learned from the Free Jazz case is that the interdependence and interlocking of attitudes among individual participants characteristic of shared intention is not determined by a future-directed plan and the rational pressure to be responsive to and coordinate with others, it typically engages. Rather, in the free jazz case, the performers' connection and interplay depend on the players' readiness to feel each other out, by listening to each other playing, in a way that no doubt presupposes the Husserlian retention-protention scheme.
Today, the “we” has not lost its place in contemporary debates. On the contrary, it has become a ... more Today, the “we” has not lost its place in contemporary debates. On the contrary, it has become a crucial question in the political and philosophical debates relating to global-scale disasters and traumatic events, which expose all of humanity to the same risks and same threats. In a dramatic and paradigmatic way, these events invite us to “mourn” the fantasy of self-sufficiency of the I and remind us to which extent our lives are immediately linked to those of others. At the same time, however, these events, which yields the potential to reveal a relationality constitutive of “who we are,” also suggest the need to reframe our understanding of the “we,” and to overcome the us/them divide upon which it has been construed until now. In this essay, I take up this challenge by first engaging in a critical discussion of Judith Butler’s ethics of vulnerability, and then turning to the ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas.
I. DRAWING FROM MERLEAU-PONTY'S INSIGHTS ON THE AWAKENING OF CONSCIOUSNESSThe time has appare... more I. DRAWING FROM MERLEAU-PONTY'S INSIGHTS ON THE AWAKENING OF CONSCIOUSNESSThe time has apparently come to revisit existing theories of mind, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty is once again the subject of intense interest, both from stern critics2 and from undiscerning admirers.3 In this context, it is important to provide an accurate and balanced analysis of his philosophy. My goal is therefore to highlight the significance of Merleau-Ponty's conception of flesh and its relevance for shaping the dynamic process that gives rise to a self and its conscious activity. In order to meet this overall goal, I will analyse in detail the three main stages of the creative process, taking MerleauPonty's reflections on the painter's experience provided in Eye and Mind as my starting point. In so doing, I intend first to show that, by following Merleau-Ponty's crucial intuition about the intertwining of vision and movement, movement and touch, we can shed light on the process responsible for the emergence of perceptual consciousness and its own way of thinking, a reflection between eye and mind that enriches them both. Second, I intend to explore further the generative intuition that inspired him in Eye and Mind to talk about the existence of a third eye - an inner gaze - located within our body (flesh), which sees from the inside what is on the outside2 * 4 and which, like a "third ear,''"grasps messages from the outside through the noises they caused inside us."sIn return, this approach should bring to light that the arousal of consciousness, this shining eye allowing things hidden in the shadow to appear, is in some way conditional upon an expressive gesture which prolongs vision and leads back to it, and encompasses both the phatic dimension inherent to seeing and the active dimension inherent to painting or writing.My argument will unfold in three main stages. First, I will focus on the Merleau-Pontian notion of flesh, in order to explore the experience of bodily feeling (le sentir) that precedes the very emergence of a self in the midst of perceptual life. Second, I will analyze descriptions of the circle of artistic creation, provided by famous painters-such as Paul Klee and Paul Cezanne-in order to reach a better understanding of the dynamic process through which bodily selfhood occurs and brings about consciousness (awareness) in a continuous intertwining with the world that constantly nurtures the performance of its expressive gesture. Third, I will return to Merleau-Ponty's notion of flesh, this time grasping it in its practical form as a moving and expressive body, in order to achieve a more radical formulation of this same process.2. The Experience of Bodily Feeling (Le Sentir) that Precedes the Very Emergence of a "Self" in the Midst Of Perceptual LifeIn this section, I start by tackling the experience of bodily feeling (le sentir) that precedes the emergence of a self and its conscious activity, and which lies at the intersection between perception, sense experience and motion, a far more complex notion, insofar it encompasses both moving and being moved.In a brief passage in Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty gives us a remarkable description of this experience:As I contemplate the blue of the sky I am not set over against it as an acosmic subject; I do not possess it in thought, or spread out towards it some idea of blue such as might reveal the secret of it, I abandon myself to it and plunge into the mystery, it'thinks itself within me,' I am the sky itself as it is drawn together and unified, and as it begins to exist for itself; my consciousness is saturated with this limitless blue. But, it may be retorted, the sky is not mind and there is surely no sense in saying that it exists for itself.... So, if I wanted to render precisely the perceptual experience, I ought to say that one perceives in me, and not that I perceive. Every sensation carries within it the germ of a dream or depersonalization such as we experience in that quasi-stupor to which we are reduced when we really try to live at the level of sensation. …
In this paper I intend to show that Merleau-Ponty’s conception of movement as primordial expressi... more In this paper I intend to show that Merleau-Ponty’s conception of movement as primordial expression, whereby movement is a shaping force that can be discerned in the forms it creates, allows us to go beyond the superficial definition of movement as “change of place” and discover its most essential characteristic: that is the expression of a motion—intrinsic to feeling—which can take on the form of either a generative thrust or an act that traces out and sheds light on the reserve of shapes that everything we have felt has silently traced within us. My argument will unfold in three main stages. First, I intend to show that from Merleau-Ponty’s reflections on pictorial movement there emerges a richer and more refined definition of movement that brings together the two meanings of Aristotelian dunamis (δύναμις): potentia passiva, or being acted upon, and potentia activa, or tending towards act. Second, I will show that this particular understanding of movement allows us to uncover the lived dimension of movement that is intrinsic to sense experience and enacts the metamorphosis of our impressions into the expression that reveals to us the carnal obverse [envers charnel] of our experiences of the visible world. Finally, I will show that this particular understanding of movement proves to be a strategy for thinking of both the emergence of sense within the flesh of the world and the advent of history that unravels at its heart.
The creative force that lies within imagination escapes all names and all conceptualizations. In ... more The creative force that lies within imagination escapes all names and all conceptualizations. In the final analysis, it remains an unspeakable, and even unknowable, mystery. It is not, however, an inaccessible mystery, insofar as it manifests itself within our very selves. Our body is charged with this force. It corresponds to the very exercise of our living body though it does not solely concern bodily motion, for it is a component of our relation with the world, the rim or inner fold of our primordial exposure to vision and to the visible, to which we are subjected in an original way by our own body. I intend to reveal the cosmic dimension of our carnal relation with the world and the creative force of imagination that it involves. My goal is, therefore, to capture imagination in its nascent state, when it first manifests itself within us in our sensible, perceiving and moving body and life. In order to meet this overall goal, I will explore new findings between Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Paul Klee.
pathos est ici compris, conformément à la définition qu'en donne Aristote dans la Poétique, comme... more pathos est ici compris, conformément à la définition qu'en donne Aristote dans la Poétique, comme état affectif suscité chez le spectateur par un message ou un comportement particulier. 5 Giorgio Agamben, « Notes sur le geste », dans Id., Moyens sans fins, op. cit., p. 69. 6 Idem. 7 Selon une expression que nous empruntons à Barbara Formis (dir.), Gestes à l'oeuvre,
Phenomenology and The Cognitive Sciences, Oct 28, 2019
Page 12, fifth paragraph, line 31: the location Bthere are:^has been deleted and placed in the th... more Page 12, fifth paragraph, line 31: the location Bthere are:^has been deleted and placed in the third paragraph, line 13. Publisher's note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Mar 15, 2021
ABSTRACT According to a recent and prominent view, a ‘we-perspective’ arises out of a dyadic I-yo... more ABSTRACT According to a recent and prominent view, a ‘we-perspective’ arises out of a dyadic I-you relation involving a special form of reciprocity in which I relate to another as a you – as somebody who is also attending and addressing me. As important as this argument might be, one obvious limitation lies in that it typically applies to dyadic forms of ‘we’ which are bound to the here and now of face-to-face interactions between ‘ad hoc pairs of individuals’. Drawing inspiration from Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason and Freud’s Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, I will argue that in order to trace a way out of this impasse, one needs to shift the theoretical focus from dyadic face-to-face (immediate) relations of reciprocity between I and You, self and other to ternary relations of ‘mediated reciprocity’ involving the figure and the functions of a third party (le tiers).
Aisthesis. Pratiche, linguaggi e saperi dell’estetico, Jun 16, 2019
This article examines the particular aesthetic experience brought about by soundwalks. In each ca... more This article examines the particular aesthetic experience brought about by soundwalks. In each case, the point of departure is the phenomenological analysis of two case study: Janet Cardiff 's Walks and the audio-tours Remote x by Rimini Protokoll. Drawing upon Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, I will examine the conflicts of perception and the peculiar shift from one order of perception to another that punctuate the spectator's walking, as well as the intertwining of the real and the imaginary coming into being in such performances and experienced at the very level of his bodily inscription in space. More specifically, my aim is to address the challenge that the aesthetic experience here in question sets to Husserl's phenomenology of perception and to show how the extension of the notion of perception achieved by Merleau-Ponty makes it possible to overcome the paradox.
La realtà del legame contro l'a priori della distinzione Come Merleau-Ponty sottolinea nel capito... more La realtà del legame contro l'a priori della distinzione Come Merleau-Ponty sottolinea nel capitolo della Fenomenologia della percezione intitolato "L'altro e il mondo umano", la relazione con l'altro è incomprensibile se la si pensa come il 'faccia a faccia' di un soggetto, concepito come pura coscienza, con un oggetto, posto di fronte a lui e dispiegato davanti al suo sguardo senza segreti. "L'esistenza dell'altro", scrive il filosofo, "costituisce una difficoltà e uno scandalo per il pensiero oggettivo" 2. Un tale pensiero oggettivo, così come la filosofia riflessiva che ne è l'opposto speculare, riflette la struttura dell'ontologia classica, derivata da Cartesio, che oppone un Soggetto come puro essere per sé (presenza a sé) e come coscienza costituente a un Oggetto inerte pensato come puro essere in sé, che si offre interamente davanti al suo sguardo. Affinché l'altro sia comprensibile, bisogna rinunciare alla "biforcazione della 'coscienza di' e dell'oggetto" 3 e prendere finalmente sul serio la realtà del legame, che abbiamo vissuto durante l'infanzia, nella forma di una "tranquilla coesistenza" 4 con gli altri. Come Merleau-Ponty scriverà in una Nota di lavoro del Visibile e l'invisible, "In realtà né io né l'altro siamo dati come positivi, come soggettività positive. Si tratta di due antri, di due aperture, di due scene in cui accadrà qualcosa,-e che appartengono entrambi allo stesso mondo, alla scena dell'Essere" 5. E aggiunge in una nota dello stesso anno: "Se si parte dal visibile e dalla visione, dal sensibile e dal sentire, si ottiene una idea completamente nuova della 'soggettività' : non ci sono più 'sintesi', c'è un contatto con l'essere attraverso le sue modulazioni, o i suoi rilievi-L'altro non è più tanto una libertà vista dall'esterno come destino e fatalità, un soggetto rivale di un soggetto, ma è preso nel circuito che lo collega a noi-E questo mondo ci è comune, è intermondo-E c'è transitivismo per generalità" 6. Nel campo della psicoanalisi, Melanie Klein deve risolvere un problema analogo, nel momento in cui descrive la genesi della prima relazione con l'altro, incentrata, durante la "posizione schizo-paranoide" (0-4 mesi), sul seno materno. In effetti, la distinzione tra un soggetto e un oggetto, così come la nozione di oggetto perdono la loro pertinenza in una relazione arcaica di questo tipo, che è plasmata dall'alternanza tra l'introiezione e la proiezione, e che implica un va-e-vieni fluido tra situazioni e oggetti interni ed esterni, parti allontanate da sé e integrate in sé. Tuttavia, Klein ricorre a un sistema che, come scrive Jean Laplanche, "fonctionne par jeu de paires opposées permettant toutes les mécaniques et toutes les stéréotypies" 7 e non riesce ad eliminare l'inadeguatezza esistente tra i 124 brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk
The kind of collective improvisation attained by free jazz at the beginning of the sixties appear... more The kind of collective improvisation attained by free jazz at the beginning of the sixties appears interesting from the perspective of contemporary debates on collective intentionality for several reasons. The most notable of these, is that it holds a mirror up to what analytical philosophers of action identify as "the complexly interwoven sets of collective intentions" that make a group more than the sum of its parts. But at the same time, free jazz poses a challenge to these philosophical theories of collective intentionality, because what happens is not planned in advance but arises from spontaneous interactions in the group. The second and no less decisive reason is that jazz musicians act together in a very distinctive way, which casts into clear relief the interplay between togetherness and agonism, individual freedom and group commitment, which is contained in every human interaction. In other words, in free jazz we find what Hannah Arendt calls the "paradoxical" or "twofold" character of "human plurality." Starting with the analysis of two paradigmatic case studies-Charles Mingus's Folk Forms No. 1 and Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation-my main concern in this paper is to provide a phenomenological account of the individual-yet-plural intentionality that emerges and runs through the improvisatory process in the free jazz case. After having made the negative point that this phenomenon represents a challenge to the analytical theories of collective intentionality, I shall argue that it can be accounted for from a phenomenological perspective. My basic thesis is that the overall cohesiveness of the improvisatory process must be regarded as a meaningful realization of an overall feeling, shared and shaped together by musicians over time-and not as the execution of an advanced plan.
Phenomenology and The Cognitive Sciences, Oct 2, 2019
The kind of collective improvisation attained by the "free jazz" at the beginning of the sixties ... more The kind of collective improvisation attained by the "free jazz" at the beginning of the sixties sets a challenge to analytic theories of collective intentionality, that emphasize the role played by future-directed plans in the interlocking and interdependent intentions (and attitudes) of the individual participants, because in the free jazz case the performers' interdependence or [interplay] stems from an intuitive understanding between musicians. Otherwise said: what happens musically is not planned in advance, but arises from spontaneous interactions in the group. By looking at the way jazz improvisers take up the challenge of making music together without a preconceived notion as to what kind of effect they will achieve and without a pre-set code of agreements (related to theme, chord patterns and chorus lengths), my aim has been to clarify what kind of strategiesother than advanced action plans and joint commitmentsare used by improvising musicians to integrate their improvisations into a unified shared activity. In developing this proposal I initially drawn pre-theoretically on one paradigmatic study case-Ornette Coleman's double quartet Free Jazz, A collective Improvisation (1960) and brought it in conversation with Husserl's phenomenology of time. In a final move, I brought this phenomenological frame into dialogue with some recent readings of the predictive coding model. All in all, what we learned from the Free Jazz case is that the interdependence and interlocking of attitudes among individual participants characteristic of shared intention is not determined by a future-directed plan and the rational pressure to be responsive to and coordinate with others, it typically engages. Rather, in the free jazz case, the performers' connection and interplay depend on the players' readiness to feel each other out, by listening to each other playing, in a way that no doubt presupposes the Husserlian retention-protention scheme.
Today, the “we” has not lost its place in contemporary debates. On the contrary, it has become a ... more Today, the “we” has not lost its place in contemporary debates. On the contrary, it has become a crucial question in the political and philosophical debates relating to global-scale disasters and traumatic events, which expose all of humanity to the same risks and same threats. In a dramatic and paradigmatic way, these events invite us to “mourn” the fantasy of self-sufficiency of the I and remind us to which extent our lives are immediately linked to those of others. At the same time, however, these events, which yields the potential to reveal a relationality constitutive of “who we are,” also suggest the need to reframe our understanding of the “we,” and to overcome the us/them divide upon which it has been construed until now. In this essay, I take up this challenge by first engaging in a critical discussion of Judith Butler’s ethics of vulnerability, and then turning to the ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas.
I. DRAWING FROM MERLEAU-PONTY'S INSIGHTS ON THE AWAKENING OF CONSCIOUSNESSThe time has appare... more I. DRAWING FROM MERLEAU-PONTY'S INSIGHTS ON THE AWAKENING OF CONSCIOUSNESSThe time has apparently come to revisit existing theories of mind, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty is once again the subject of intense interest, both from stern critics2 and from undiscerning admirers.3 In this context, it is important to provide an accurate and balanced analysis of his philosophy. My goal is therefore to highlight the significance of Merleau-Ponty's conception of flesh and its relevance for shaping the dynamic process that gives rise to a self and its conscious activity. In order to meet this overall goal, I will analyse in detail the three main stages of the creative process, taking MerleauPonty's reflections on the painter's experience provided in Eye and Mind as my starting point. In so doing, I intend first to show that, by following Merleau-Ponty's crucial intuition about the intertwining of vision and movement, movement and touch, we can shed light on the process responsible for the emergence of perceptual consciousness and its own way of thinking, a reflection between eye and mind that enriches them both. Second, I intend to explore further the generative intuition that inspired him in Eye and Mind to talk about the existence of a third eye - an inner gaze - located within our body (flesh), which sees from the inside what is on the outside2 * 4 and which, like a "third ear,''"grasps messages from the outside through the noises they caused inside us."sIn return, this approach should bring to light that the arousal of consciousness, this shining eye allowing things hidden in the shadow to appear, is in some way conditional upon an expressive gesture which prolongs vision and leads back to it, and encompasses both the phatic dimension inherent to seeing and the active dimension inherent to painting or writing.My argument will unfold in three main stages. First, I will focus on the Merleau-Pontian notion of flesh, in order to explore the experience of bodily feeling (le sentir) that precedes the very emergence of a self in the midst of perceptual life. Second, I will analyze descriptions of the circle of artistic creation, provided by famous painters-such as Paul Klee and Paul Cezanne-in order to reach a better understanding of the dynamic process through which bodily selfhood occurs and brings about consciousness (awareness) in a continuous intertwining with the world that constantly nurtures the performance of its expressive gesture. Third, I will return to Merleau-Ponty's notion of flesh, this time grasping it in its practical form as a moving and expressive body, in order to achieve a more radical formulation of this same process.2. The Experience of Bodily Feeling (Le Sentir) that Precedes the Very Emergence of a "Self" in the Midst Of Perceptual LifeIn this section, I start by tackling the experience of bodily feeling (le sentir) that precedes the emergence of a self and its conscious activity, and which lies at the intersection between perception, sense experience and motion, a far more complex notion, insofar it encompasses both moving and being moved.In a brief passage in Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty gives us a remarkable description of this experience:As I contemplate the blue of the sky I am not set over against it as an acosmic subject; I do not possess it in thought, or spread out towards it some idea of blue such as might reveal the secret of it, I abandon myself to it and plunge into the mystery, it'thinks itself within me,' I am the sky itself as it is drawn together and unified, and as it begins to exist for itself; my consciousness is saturated with this limitless blue. But, it may be retorted, the sky is not mind and there is surely no sense in saying that it exists for itself.... So, if I wanted to render precisely the perceptual experience, I ought to say that one perceives in me, and not that I perceive. Every sensation carries within it the germ of a dream or depersonalization such as we experience in that quasi-stupor to which we are reduced when we really try to live at the level of sensation. …
In this paper I intend to show that Merleau-Ponty’s conception of movement as primordial expressi... more In this paper I intend to show that Merleau-Ponty’s conception of movement as primordial expression, whereby movement is a shaping force that can be discerned in the forms it creates, allows us to go beyond the superficial definition of movement as “change of place” and discover its most essential characteristic: that is the expression of a motion—intrinsic to feeling—which can take on the form of either a generative thrust or an act that traces out and sheds light on the reserve of shapes that everything we have felt has silently traced within us. My argument will unfold in three main stages. First, I intend to show that from Merleau-Ponty’s reflections on pictorial movement there emerges a richer and more refined definition of movement that brings together the two meanings of Aristotelian dunamis (δύναμις): potentia passiva, or being acted upon, and potentia activa, or tending towards act. Second, I will show that this particular understanding of movement allows us to uncover the lived dimension of movement that is intrinsic to sense experience and enacts the metamorphosis of our impressions into the expression that reveals to us the carnal obverse [envers charnel] of our experiences of the visible world. Finally, I will show that this particular understanding of movement proves to be a strategy for thinking of both the emergence of sense within the flesh of the world and the advent of history that unravels at its heart.
The creative force that lies within imagination escapes all names and all conceptualizations. In ... more The creative force that lies within imagination escapes all names and all conceptualizations. In the final analysis, it remains an unspeakable, and even unknowable, mystery. It is not, however, an inaccessible mystery, insofar as it manifests itself within our very selves. Our body is charged with this force. It corresponds to the very exercise of our living body though it does not solely concern bodily motion, for it is a component of our relation with the world, the rim or inner fold of our primordial exposure to vision and to the visible, to which we are subjected in an original way by our own body. I intend to reveal the cosmic dimension of our carnal relation with the world and the creative force of imagination that it involves. My goal is, therefore, to capture imagination in its nascent state, when it first manifests itself within us in our sensible, perceiving and moving body and life. In order to meet this overall goal, I will explore new findings between Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Paul Klee.
pathos est ici compris, conformément à la définition qu'en donne Aristote dans la Poétique, comme... more pathos est ici compris, conformément à la définition qu'en donne Aristote dans la Poétique, comme état affectif suscité chez le spectateur par un message ou un comportement particulier. 5 Giorgio Agamben, « Notes sur le geste », dans Id., Moyens sans fins, op. cit., p. 69. 6 Idem. 7 Selon une expression que nous empruntons à Barbara Formis (dir.), Gestes à l'oeuvre,
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