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Guides for the Perplexed
Merleau-Ponty: A Guide for the Perplexed
Maurice Merleau-Ponty was one of the most important figures in the existential and phenomenological traditions in twentieth-century Continental philosophy. Merleau-Ponty: A Guide for the Perplexed is the ideal text for students encountering Merleau-Ponty's philosophy for the first time. The book assumes no prior knowledge of the subject, and takes the reader though the key themes in Merleau-Ponty's work, casting light on complex ideas, including - crucially - his interpretations of 'perception', 'embodiment' and 'behaviour'. Most importantly this Guide for the Perplexed offers a full and authoritative explication of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological account of human behaviour.
- GenresPhilosophyNonfiction
192 pages, Paperback
First published May 24, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 2, 2015
This is a brilliant introduction to the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty; accessible to the beginning student, it assumes no previous knowledge of philosophy, yet it still treats the matter at hand in deep, thoughtful ways that will provoke any philosophy student.
Some key point:
Perception
For the empiricist, perception is indirect, broken down and analyzed in different components, and passive; for Merleau-Ponty, perception is "participatory"--the thing I am perceiving interacts with me as I perceive. To perceive is always be to situated, and to be situated is always to be embodied: to be physically present in a place, a physical instantiation of "consciousness".
Traditional Scientific Frameworks
What is wrong with them is that they take for granted the scientific view of the world. In the framework of Science, we become "objective" by "transcending" our physical bodies. We assume, in other words, it does not matter that we are embodied beings. But, for Merleau-Ponty, we are primarily and foremost embodied beings, so to just assume this as part of the unimportant "background noise" is unacceptable.
Behavior
Science looks for cause and effect relationships; but experience is a matter of a priori intentional structures. By Intentional, Husserl (who borrowed the term from Brentano and adopted it as the main tenet of phenomenology) meant that consciousness is always directed at something, it is never just unbounded consciousness. Behavior is intentional in this sense (and not simply a causal matter), writes M-P. For example, we might be able to explain causally why our body moves the way it does when we are going somewhere, but we will not, within this inquiry, understand why we are going where we are going, why our bodies are going faster rather than slower, why we are panting in excitement and so forth. For us to understand these structures of experience, we must bracket our preconceptions and, through phenomenological inquiry, try and get back to "the things themselves".
Brilliant and easy-to-read book by a life-long philosopher interested in Merleau-Ponty and embodiment. Highly Recommended!!!
Some key point:
Perception
For the empiricist, perception is indirect, broken down and analyzed in different components, and passive; for Merleau-Ponty, perception is "participatory"--the thing I am perceiving interacts with me as I perceive. To perceive is always be to situated, and to be situated is always to be embodied: to be physically present in a place, a physical instantiation of "consciousness".
Traditional Scientific Frameworks
What is wrong with them is that they take for granted the scientific view of the world. In the framework of Science, we become "objective" by "transcending" our physical bodies. We assume, in other words, it does not matter that we are embodied beings. But, for Merleau-Ponty, we are primarily and foremost embodied beings, so to just assume this as part of the unimportant "background noise" is unacceptable.
Behavior
Science looks for cause and effect relationships; but experience is a matter of a priori intentional structures. By Intentional, Husserl (who borrowed the term from Brentano and adopted it as the main tenet of phenomenology) meant that consciousness is always directed at something, it is never just unbounded consciousness. Behavior is intentional in this sense (and not simply a causal matter), writes M-P. For example, we might be able to explain causally why our body moves the way it does when we are going somewhere, but we will not, within this inquiry, understand why we are going where we are going, why our bodies are going faster rather than slower, why we are panting in excitement and so forth. For us to understand these structures of experience, we must bracket our preconceptions and, through phenomenological inquiry, try and get back to "the things themselves".
Brilliant and easy-to-read book by a life-long philosopher interested in Merleau-Ponty and embodiment. Highly Recommended!!!
September 23, 2025
if you like this review i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
201029: have actually over the years read this three times, 06, 11, 20. excellent introduction to this writer, this style of thought. just wish i could operate website and note these changes. short book, i read this at beginning of interest, then to see if i had understood after other writings, then to try and place him in history of my thoughts. am reading Bergson and some Indic philosophers but m-p remains a favourite...
more
Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Basic Writings
Phenomenology of Perception
The Visible and the Invisible
Merleau-Ponty's Last Vision: A Proposal for the Completion of "The Visible and the Invisible"
The Retrieval of the Beautiful: Thinking Through Merleau-Ponty’s Aesthetics
Ark of the Possible: The Animal World in Merleau-Ponty
The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader: Philosophy and Painting
Merleau-Ponty's Ontology
The Being of the Phenomenon: Merleau-Ponty's Ontology
Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy
Merleau-Ponty: Critical Assessments of Leading PhilosophersMerleau-Ponty's Phenomenology: The Problem of Ideal Objects
Merleau-Ponty and Buddhism
201029: have actually over the years read this three times, 06, 11, 20. excellent introduction to this writer, this style of thought. just wish i could operate website and note these changes. short book, i read this at beginning of interest, then to see if i had understood after other writings, then to try and place him in history of my thoughts. am reading Bergson and some Indic philosophers but m-p remains a favourite...
more
Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Basic Writings
Phenomenology of Perception
The Visible and the Invisible
Merleau-Ponty's Last Vision: A Proposal for the Completion of "The Visible and the Invisible"
The Retrieval of the Beautiful: Thinking Through Merleau-Ponty’s Aesthetics
Ark of the Possible: The Animal World in Merleau-Ponty
The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader: Philosophy and Painting
Merleau-Ponty's Ontology
The Being of the Phenomenon: Merleau-Ponty's Ontology
Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy
Merleau-Ponty: Critical Assessments of Leading PhilosophersMerleau-Ponty's Phenomenology: The Problem of Ideal Objects
Merleau-Ponty and Buddhism
May 31, 2018
Much more appreciated second time around...I’m sure it would be even better if I re-read it a third time after I wade through all the other phenomenology and MP stuff I’ve started...
September 5, 2014
Merleau Ponty: A Guide for the Perplexed by Eric Matthews literally opens the doors of perception to the great French philosopher's work, rendering an otherwise dense and profound prose accessible to the layman. Merleau-Ponty's work remains challenging yet easily relatable to one's own life, and his ideas continue to resonate in a variety of fields ranging from psychology to neuroscience, making him the most important philosopher of the 20th century.
April 3, 2022
This book came out in 2006 and I picked it up in 2007 as I was completing my undergraduate work. This was one of the books that made me realize that when I entered graduate school to begin work in phenomenology, Merleau-Ponty (M-P) would have to be one of my main sources.
As an undergraduate, I had mostly been exposed to Analytic Philosophy, and thus I had a lot of catching up to do to acquire an understanding of phenomenology as a field and the basic ideas of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger’s philosophy (among others). This book provides a lot of background and as a result, nicely introduces these topics to the reader.
There is a chapter on perception (chapter 2) that provides a good overview of empiricism and intellectualism as two ways to analyze how we perceive the world. The contrast of these ideas gives you the grounding on this topic and the Merleau-Pontian critique of these positions.
The embodiment chapter (chapter 3) looks at the objective ‘view from nowhere’ approach that science and some philosophy have tried to take on how we can know something. M-P has a problem with this approach – or, perhaps better, finds there is a limitation to this perspective – and this chapter develops that idea.
The book goes on to pick apart different views on behavior (chapter 4), Heideggerian and Sartrean views on Being Human (chapter 5), the temporal aspect of existence – that is how we experience time (chapter 6), and finally bringing in society and culture (chapter 7), and art (chapter 8). When you have completed the book you should have a decent grounding of the philosophical and scientific ideas M-P was responding to and what he intended to achieve with his alternative approach.
The book helped me as an undergraduate transition to a new type of philosophical thinking (i.e. moving from the Analytic to Continental perspective, what differences and commonalities can be found between them, and how the conversation changes when you make that shift), as well as gain a new perspective on science and its approach to understanding the world. Of course, it also helps you understand M-P! Now, years after I completed my Ph.D. and having specialized in this area, I enjoyed reading through the clear explanation of these ideas which are now a part of my thinking and worldview. It is nice when you can find an author that can clearly present ideas to a broad audience, Eric Matthews has achieved this.
I recommend this book to those interested in M-P and phenomenology.
As an undergraduate, I had mostly been exposed to Analytic Philosophy, and thus I had a lot of catching up to do to acquire an understanding of phenomenology as a field and the basic ideas of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger’s philosophy (among others). This book provides a lot of background and as a result, nicely introduces these topics to the reader.
There is a chapter on perception (chapter 2) that provides a good overview of empiricism and intellectualism as two ways to analyze how we perceive the world. The contrast of these ideas gives you the grounding on this topic and the Merleau-Pontian critique of these positions.
The embodiment chapter (chapter 3) looks at the objective ‘view from nowhere’ approach that science and some philosophy have tried to take on how we can know something. M-P has a problem with this approach – or, perhaps better, finds there is a limitation to this perspective – and this chapter develops that idea.
The book goes on to pick apart different views on behavior (chapter 4), Heideggerian and Sartrean views on Being Human (chapter 5), the temporal aspect of existence – that is how we experience time (chapter 6), and finally bringing in society and culture (chapter 7), and art (chapter 8). When you have completed the book you should have a decent grounding of the philosophical and scientific ideas M-P was responding to and what he intended to achieve with his alternative approach.
The book helped me as an undergraduate transition to a new type of philosophical thinking (i.e. moving from the Analytic to Continental perspective, what differences and commonalities can be found between them, and how the conversation changes when you make that shift), as well as gain a new perspective on science and its approach to understanding the world. Of course, it also helps you understand M-P! Now, years after I completed my Ph.D. and having specialized in this area, I enjoyed reading through the clear explanation of these ideas which are now a part of my thinking and worldview. It is nice when you can find an author that can clearly present ideas to a broad audience, Eric Matthews has achieved this.
I recommend this book to those interested in M-P and phenomenology.
December 29, 2025
Helped me understand Eye and Mind by Merleau Ponty. Written in accessible language.
January 30, 2014
A nice clear introductory text.
June 17, 2014
Well thank God for this book. It took me two weeks of hard reading to get through The Phenomenology of Perception. Reading this as a chaser was the perfect follow-up.
Want to read
March 24, 2009I'm going to engage in some chronological backpedaling, as usual.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews