Merleau-Ponty's Last Vision: A Proposal for the Completion of "The Visible and the Invisible"

by Douglas Low

Few writers' unfinished works are considered among their most important, but such is the case with Merleau-Ponty's The Visible and the Invisible . What exists of it is a mere beginning, yet it bridged modernism and postmodernism in philosophy. Low uses material from some of Merleau-Ponty's later works as the basis for completion. Working from this material and the philosopher's own outline, Low presents how this important work would have looked had Merleau-Ponty lived to complete it.

Genres: Philosophy

124 pages, Paperback

First published September 11, 2000

Reviews

[Kamakana · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com

121119: third review. i might take up reading this once/year until i understand it better, each time finding new terms, new concepts, but then this is philosophy on philosophy. this time i noticed more ‘reversibility’ and ‘fold’, as in present folds past folds present, and think more on insistence this is not Cartesian, rationalist, empiricism, modernist nor deconstruction, that words are not preceded by thought, nor are words constantly referring to other words. words, gestures, are expressing through our bodies, our ‘chiasm’, where the sense of our world is not just nature, not just consciousness, not just words... but all of these combined together... all anchored in our human being, our bodies, and history is sedimented and not Hegelian.

250218: second review. again great. learn something new, understand certain assertions better. by now read a lot somehow still on or by m-p (71) arguments proliferate, one example is against bergson's asserts that perception is 'coincidence', collapsing difference, rather than 'slippage', which promotes ambiguity, closeness, 'intertwining' Being and 'world', overcoming separation dualities that haunt 'western' philosophy, mind and body etc... i think the oneness bergson argues toward is finally identity of self and world as properly mystical and not philosophical... there is as always much about perception preceding Being, much about originary 'style' in brute being, much about limitations of certain analytic thoughts such as 'objectivity' in the 'view from nowhere', there is dispute about atomistic 'quale', of 'realism' and 'rationalism' both incomplete because they ignore the 'body' of 'embodied' being that is 'invisible' and is armature of any existential phenomenology, this is all fascinating. and of course any book that inspires reading another book(s) is definitely a five...

first review 130215: i enjoyed this greatly- though yes of course this is elaboration of unfinished work so who knows how accurate. what i enjoyed most was reading how another philosopher tries to continue m-p's thought. i had thought i understood merleau-ponty's visin but this clarifies at least how it can be seen as somewhere between phenomenology and deconstruction. words are not just words but refer to something final, something of the style of being, not endless 'deferrance'...

there are a few summations of what exactly is 'the visible' as sensed, as named, 'the flesh' as sensing object/self, 'the chiasm' which unifies self and world as it separates, and 'nature' as more than resource of real (marx), and the 'invisible' as 'meaning' and 'logos' as 'expression'... i do not know how useful his suggestions are, but low's interpretation of m-p's last completed chapter 'the chiasm' is great...

the work from 'themes of lectures at the college de france' are more speculative, but the fact m-p had republished these without changes does suggest they would have fit in this work... short work, fascinating, and though i found it easy, engaging, stimulating, i realize now that is maybe because i have read a lot on (44?) or by m-p (13) plus some more that involve him (14)... so take the rating carefully…

more
Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Basic Writings
Phenomenology of Perception
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 Philosophers
Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology: The Problem of Ideal Objects
Merleau-Ponty and Buddhism
The Visible and the Invisible

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[Scott Satterwhite · Rating 5 out of 5]

Douglas Low's 2000 work on Merleau-Ponty is an incredible contribution to the continuing study of M-P which I cannot recommend highly enough. Anyone familiar with M-P's work understands the place of Low in this philosophical community (if you're not, look him up). "Last Vision" is a rich source for exploration into M-P's later writings, work that has only barely been touched upon in English, even to this day. As with Low's other writings, this text is yet another brilliant and thought provoking analysis of the philosopher's unfinished work. I'm happy to see his work (finally) getting its proper recognition in American scholarship, and I'm very happy to have this book in my collection.

[David Markwell · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was well written and a good overview of Merleau-Ponty's later philosophy, but really didn't add much to the discussion of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy. Overall it is a nice introduction to Merleau-Ponty's ontology, but lacks any substantive engagement with the late texts.