CONCEPT OF FLESH IN M. MERLEAU-PONTY’S “ONTOLOGY OF VISIBLE”

Abstract

Th e article discusses late Merleau-Ponty’s ontology with its central notion of the fl esh, by which the philosopher sought to clarify the meaning of being of vision as the unity of the seer and the visible. Criticizing the philosophy of conscience from Descartes to Husserl, the philosopher uses the resources of the German phenomenology — late Husserl and Heidegger, Greek philosophy, French philosophy of art. It is shown that the fl esh can be interpreted as the truth of being, which opens to the direct experience of the body, while the body itself being initially opened to it performs pre-predicative “Vorhabe” in the life—world. Trying to fi nd adequate formulation, which allow to understand the fl esh as the fi rst principle (the truth or the meaning) of being, philosopher refers to the experience of art. He understands the art as a fundamental way of thinking which opens the fi rst, germinal meanings of being. While painting painter thinks not with his spirit, but through his body — his eyes and hands. So art opens meanings of visible being whereas philosophy explicates profound ontological meaning of artistic thinking.

Keywords:

Merleau-Ponty, phenomenology, ontology, flesh, perceptual belief, body, openness of being