Metodo

International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Series | Book | Chapter

146687

The flesh

from ontological employment to intercultural employment

Kwok-Ying Lau(The Chinese University of Hong Kong)

pp. 173-191

Abstract

It is well-known that Merleau-Ponty presented the article "The Philosopher and His Shadow" to a conference celebrating the centenary of Husserl's birth in 1959. In this now classic article in the literature of the phenomenological movement Merleau-Ponty paid homage to the founder of contemporary phenomenology in an unusual way. The author of Phenomenology of Perception did not act like an epigone who was just repeating the well-known theses of Husserl, the transcendental philosopher who had already occupied a comfortable place in the history of Western philosophy. Nor did Merleau-Ponty take up the role of a so-called objective critique of Husserl's doctrine by subjecting it "to analytic observation or out-of-context thinking". This latter attitude is a positivistic one which "requires the meaning of [a man's] work to be wholly positive and by rights susceptible to an inventory which sets forth what is and is not in those works". By adopting such an attitude one will end up destroying the heritage of Husserl the thinker. So how to avoid destroying the precious heritage of a classic thinker like Husserl from whom we never stop learning? Merleau-Ponty drew our attention to some common experience of apprenticeship in philosophy. When one is still at the stage of apprentice of philosophical thinking, she always wants to follow the master as closely as possible. She is happy and even proud to be the witness of the ebb and flow of the master's thinking, which brings about breakthrough almost day by day. But once becoming adult philosophically, it is not easy for the former apprentice to make full sense of her past trajectory when she tries to show her spirit of independence, and in particular when she engages herself on the road to discovering new horizons. In order to maintain a critical attitude toward the path of her distant youth, it is not rare that a philosopher who has attained the age of maturity shows herself to be severely critical not only to her past journey, but also to the heritage of her past master. Merleau-Ponty rightly pointed out the risks of denying without reserve the meaning of one's own past in matters of philosophical apprenticeship:Whom did Merleau-Ponty refer to when he wrote these lines? If one replies by giving the name of Heidegger, this is a rather logical response for it is no secret that there are a lot of veiled criticisms against Husserlian phenomenology in Heidegger's Sein und Zeit, though these criticisms are neither always correct nor justified. However, the present author is of the opinion that here Merleau-Ponty probably aimed more at Eugen Fink than at Heidegger. We all know that the young Fink had been a close assistant of the old Husserl. After finishing his doctoral dissertation under the direction of the Freiburg master, Fink published in 1933 a long article defending Husserl's phenomenology against some common misunderstandings shared by the German philosophical community of the time. Fink's article, which contains some point-by-point retorts to current criticisms of Husserl's phenomenology, is prefaced by Husserl himself in which the old master affirmed without reservation Fink's explanations. However, some 20 years later, the now mature Fink published a series of immensely critical articles on Husserl's phenomenology. And it was precisely Fink and not Heidegger who was present in the conference commemorating Husserl's centenary at which Merleau-Ponty first presented his article "The Philosopher and His Shadow".

Publication details

Published in:

Lau Kwok-Ying (2016) Phenomenology and intercultural understanding: Toward a new cultural flesh. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 173-191

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-44764-3_10

Full citation:

Lau Kwok-Ying (2016) The flesh: from ontological employment to intercultural employment, In: Phenomenology and intercultural understanding, Dordrecht, Springer, 173–191.