Merleau Ponty - The World Of Perception

The World of Perception
‘This is that rare genre, the careful popularisation, done by
the original author. In simple prose Merleau-Ponty touches
on his principal themes. He speaks about the body and the
world, the coexistence of space and things, the unfortunate
optimism of science – and also the insidious stickiness of
honey, and the mystery of anger. These lectures are slight
but notsuperficial: you can feel the deep consonance with
Lacan and the unspoken debt to Heidegger. Breton, Bataille,
Blanchot, Ponge, Kafka, Proust, Cézanne, and Sartre float
through the text, each one impeccably well cited. And it is all
posed in a lovely calm tone, which I read as Merleau-Ponty’s
deep and unacknowledged affinity with his foil, Descartes.’

S TORIES

J AMES E LKINS , AUTHOR
OFA RT AND P ICTURES AND T EARS

‘Merleau-Ponty is one of the seminal thinkers of the postwar period, and these short talks to a radio audience, from a
relatively early moment in his writing career, show his
humane intelligence at work.’
M ICHAEL F RIED, J OHNS H OPKINS U NIVERSITY

M AURICE M ERLEAU -P ONTY

The World of Perception

TRANSLATED BY OLIVER DAVIS

First published inFrench as Causeries 1948
© Editions du Seuil, 2002
First published 2004
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
Translation © Routledge 2004Introduction © Thomas Baldwin 2004
This book is supported by the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs, as part of the
Burgess Programme headed for the French Embassy in London by the Institut
Français du Royaume-Uni.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known
or hereafter invented,including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 1908–1961
[Causeries 1948. English]
The world ofperception / Merleau-Ponty.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-415-31271-X (Hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Perception (Philosophy) I. Title
B828.45.M47 2004
121′ .34–dc22
2003026843
ISBN 0-203-49182-3 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-33727-1 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0–415–31271–X (Print Edition)

Contents

Foreword by Stéphanie Ménasé
Introduction by Thomas Baldwin

vii
1

1

The World of Perception and theWorld of Science

37

2

Exploring the World of Perception: Space

47

3

Exploring the World of Perception: Sensory Objects

57

4

Exploring the World of Perception: Animal Life

67

5

Man Seen from the Outside

79

6

Art and the World of Perception

91

7

Classical World, Modern World

103

Notes

115

Index

123

Foreword

The sevenlectures collected in this volume were commissioned by French national radio and broadcast on its National
Programme at the end of 1948. Copies have been kept at the
Institut National de l’Audiovisuel for use by researchers and
other professionals alike.
These seven talks were written by Maurice Merleau-Ponty for
a series of radio broadcasts and delivered by him in 1948.1
According to theofficial radio listings, six were broadcast on
the French national station, one each week, between Saturday
9 October and Saturday 13 November 1948. The lectures
were recorded for a programme called ‘The French Culture
Hour’ and were read continuously, without interruption.
Copies of the recordings have been kept at the Institut
National de l’Audiovisuel (INA).
vii

On Saturdays, the general...