Merleau-Ponty and the Paradoxes of Expression: Philosophy, Aesthetics and Cultural Theory

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Merleau-Ponty and the Paradoxes of Expression offers a comprehensive reading of the philosophical work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, a central figure in 20th-century continental philosophy. By establishing that the paradoxical logic of expression is Merleau-Ponty's fundamental philosophical gesture, this book ties together his diverse work on perception, language, aesthetics, politics and history in order to establish the ontological position he was developing at the time of his sudden death in 1961. Donald A. Landes explores the paradoxical logic of expression as it appears in both Merleau-Ponty’s explicit reflections on expression and his non-explicit uses of this logic in his philosophical reflection on other topics, and thus establishes a continuity and a trajectory of his thought that allows for his work to be placed into conversation with contemporary developments in continental philosophy. The book offers the reader a key to understanding Merleau-Ponty's subtle methodology and highlights the urgency and relevance of his research into the ontological significance of expression for today's work in art and cultural theory. Cover HalfTitle Series Title Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction: The Paradoxical Logic of Expression Meaning, communication, and phenomenological disruptions The embodied experience of expression An eidetic versus a phenomenological description of the paradoxes of expression The weight of the metastable: Simondon and the paradoxical logic of expression Metaphor and the trajectory of sense Expression and the practice of reading 1 Against the Establishment: Early Hints of an Expressive Logic The union of the soul and the body: An “anxious trembling” “quickly mastered” A young Schelerian against the Sorbonne A young Marcellian: The body, mystery, and creation 2 Expression and The Structure of Behavior Science and the logic of expression Structure and expression: Pensée naturée in the human order “But our conclusion is not that of critical philosophy” 3 Expression and Phenomenology of Perception The logic of expression against classical theories of perception The body as expression Expression and the perceived world Time and freedom as expression 4 The Politics of Expression “The War Has Taken Place” Humanism and contingency Encroachment and expression The adventures of an expressive dialectic 5 The Threads of Silence: Painting, Speaking, Writing “Cézanne’s Doubt” and expressing what exists Saussure and the phenomenology of language Reading the vestiges of The Prose of the World “Indirect Language and the Voices of Silence” 6 “The Fundamental of All Culture”: Painting, Ontology, Reading “Eye and Mind” Philosophical interrogation: Expressing The Visible and the Invisible Expressing the intertwining: The flesh as expression Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index