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Embodied Idealism: Merleau-Ponty's Transcendental Philosophy

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Introduction

1. Merleau-Ponty’s Idealism?

The aim of this book is to argue that Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s early philosophy, as

exemplified primarily in The Structure of Behavior and Phenomenology of Perception, presents a

unique form of transcendental idealism.1 While I am not the first scholar to make this claim, it

may seem prima facie odd to many. Idealism as a philosophical view is typically associated with

the notion that reality is fundamentally mental or mind-dependent. Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy,

on the other hand, is famously associated with the idea that minds are fundamentally shaped by

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embodiment. The two seemingly do not go together; if the mental is dependent upon the body it

cannot be the fundamental aspect of reality.

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While the anti-idealist depiction of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy just presented is very

simplistic, it is not unreasonable. It does capture primary aspects of idealism and Merleau-

Ponty’s views. More importantly, Merleau-Ponty is, at times, highly critical of idealism. Most

prominently, early on in the Preface to Phenomenology he announces that his thought is

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“absolutely distinct from the idealist return to consciousness,” and he goes on to say that his

preferred view “eliminates all forms of idealism.”2 Merleau-Ponty’s anti-intellectualism and

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focus on embodiment are genuine problems for views that emphasize the role of the mental.

It is also quite common in the scholarship to take Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy to be anti-

idealist. For example, in the “Translator’s Introduction” to Phenomenology, Donald Landes

1. English translations referenced in this book are Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Structure of Behavior, trans. Alden
L. Fisher, Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press (1983) and Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Donald Landes,
London: Routledge (2012). Throughout the book Structure will be cited as SB and Phenomenology will be cited as
PP. The original French texts consulted in this book are La Structure du Comportement, 6th ed., Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France (1967) and Phénoménologie de la perception, Paris: Gallimard (1945). The edition of
Phénoménologie referenced here is from the 2018 printing, with pagination that corresponds to the marginal
pagination in the 2012 Landes translation.
2. PP, lxxii, lxxvii.

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writes that Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology “offers a third way between the classical schools of

empiricism and idealism.”3 Similarly, David Morris writes that Merleau-Ponty was always

“looking for a way…between idealism and materialism.”4 One gets the sense idealism is, like

Charybdis versus Scylla, the worse of the two evils Merleau-Ponty must steer between. Morris

says that we must be wary of “returning to,” “reverting to,” or “lapsing into” idealism and he

worries that we might “never quite escape” it.5 Whatever one can say about it, it is apparently

obvious that idealism is bad.

Curiously, there are also many scholars who hold Merleau-Ponty to be an idealist.6 Often

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these idealist interpretations agree with the anti-idealist interpretations that idealism is mistaken.

For example, Marvin Farber writes that Merleau-Ponty’s views problematically “recall idealistic
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tenets of a bygone generation.”7 More recently, John Searle has claimed that Merleau-Ponty’s

conception of the lived body cannot be “the flesh and blood hunk of matter that constitutes each

of us” because of Merleau-Ponty’s rejection of scientific realism. Following this, Searle takes

Merleau-Ponty to be “an idealist in a rather traditional sense.”8 This is not meant to be a

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compliment.

There are also scholars more sympathetic to Merleau-Ponty’s thought who interpret his
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early work as having problematic idealist tendencies. Perhaps most prominently, Renaud

Barbaras argues that despite its anti-idealist leanings, Merleau-Ponty’s early thought (especially

3. See Donald Landes, “Translator’s Introduction,” in PP, xxxi.

4. David Morris, Merleau-Ponty’s Developmental Ontology, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press (2018)
151.
5. Ibid. These short quotes (which I have in some cases slightly adjusted to fit the grammar of my sentence) are on
14, 24, 37, and 86.
6. For an overview see Christopher Pollard, “Is Merleau-Ponty’s Position in Phenomenology of Perception a New
Type of Transcendental Idealism?” Idealistic Studies, 44:1 (2014) 119–138.
7. Marvin Farber, Phenomenology and Existence: Toward a Philosophy within Nature, New York: Harper & Row
(1967) 198.
8. John Searle, “The Phenomenological Illusion,” in Philosophy in a New Century: Selected Essays, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press (2008) 125.

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as displayed in Phenomenology) maintains a philosophy of consciousness and thus “gains access

to the phenomenon by means of the categories of idealism.”9 In a somewhat different

interpretation, Thomas Baldwin argues that Merleau-Ponty’s thesis of the primacy of perception

“is incipiently idealist: perception cannot be a fact of nature precisely because it plays a crucial

role in constituting nature.”10 But Baldwin takes Merleau-Ponty’s idealism to hamper his ability

to sufficiently engage with the natural sciences, thus stunting his critique of scientific realism.11

Again, idealism is a problem.

The present book departs from the scholarship mentioned above by not assuming

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idealism to be necessarily problematic. The aim of the book is primarily exegetical, with a focus

on showing that Structure and Phenomenology present a kind of idealist view. The main aim is
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not to present an apology for this view and I will not directly argue that Merleau-Ponty’s

idealism is an acceptable or preferable metaphysical and epistemological position. I do not,

however, take idealism to be a sort of plague to be avoided. Insofar as I do not treat idealism to

be obviously problematic, and present Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy as coherently maintaining a

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transcendental idealist view, I present elements of an indirect defense of that idealism. To lay

my cards on the table, though, the overarching view I attribute to Merleau-Ponty is a view I find
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highly plausible and worth defending.

Not all of the relevant scholarship presents idealism negatively. Sebastian Gardner’s

essay “Merleau-Ponty’s Transcendental Theory of Perception,” which “claims to discover at the

heart of his philosophical project an original form of idealism,” stands out as a work that does

9. Renaud Barbaras, The Being of the Phenomenon: Merleau-Ponty’s Ontology, trans. Leonard Lawlor and Ted
Toadvine, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press (2004) 16.
10. Thomas Baldwin, “Editors Introduction,” in Baldwin, ed., Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Basic Writings, New York:
Routledge (2003), 4.
11. Baldwin, “Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenological Critique of Natural Science.” Royal Institute of Philosophy
Supplement 72 (2013) 189–219.

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not take such a negative approach.12 Gardner’s essay has helped foster renewed appreciation of

Merleau-Ponty’s links to (especially transcendental) idealism in a manner that takes idealism

seriously as a philosophical view. At the same time (though not really in connection with

Merleau-Ponty scholarship) idealism in general has become a more prominent view in

contemporary philosophy, and has moved over the past few decades from being primarily an

object of derision to being a live (if minority) option in epistemology and metaphysics.13 The

time thus seems ripe for a deeper consideration of Merleau-Ponty’s relationship to idealism that

takes seriously the possibility that his philosophy is, in a positive way, idealist. This book should

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contribute to that scholarship.

2. Clarifying the Topic

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I say that the aim of the book is to show that Merleau-Ponty’s early works present a

unique form of transcendental idealism. Aside from the potential prima facie implausibility of

the notion that Merleau-Ponty was an idealist, there are a few points that require further
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explanation. Why is the focus on the “early works”? Why is the form of idealism described as

“unique”? What, exactly is “transcendental idealism”?

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The second question is the easiest to answer, at least in brief. Merleau-Ponty’s idealism

is unique because it is an idealism that takes the nature of our embodiment seriously. That is

why this book is titled Embodied Idealism. That title is meant to sound provocative, as it may

strike some readers initially as oxymoronic. My view, however, is that “embodied idealism” is

12. Sebastian Gardner, “Merleau-Ponty’s Transcendental Theory of Perception,” in The Transcendental Turn, eds.
Sebastian Gardner and Matthew Grist, Oxford: Oxford University Press (2015) 294–323, quote on 295.
13. There is a long and complex history behind the recent resurgence in idealist philosophy. One major driver of
this change has been the so-called “Post-Kantian” scholarship on Hegel. For an overview of this general movement
see Paul Redding, Analytic Philosophy and the Return of Hegelian Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press (2007).

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not an oxymoron, and there is a way to square Merleau-Ponty’s emphasis on the body with the

general tenets of transcendental idealism.

Of course, a lot hinges on what those “general tenets” are. I have noted that on a typical

view “idealism” is the idea that reality is mental or mind-dependent. But this is an imprecise

definition that does not provide enough guidance for a scholarly interpretation that seeks to align

a particular text or view with idealism. And beyond this the specifics of the transcendental

version of idealism need to be defined. To this end, this book will first, in chapter one, turn to a

discussion of idealism. That chapter will present a general definition of “idealism” and then

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move on to define “transcendental idealism” in particular. The definition of transcendental

idealism will be bolstered by a brief consideration of the views of the two main figures in the
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history of philosophy who gave their views that name and who greatly influenced Merleau-

Ponty: Immanuel Kant and Edmund Husserl. With a working definition of transcendental

idealism in place, the rest of the book will be able to present an interpretation of Merleau-Ponty’s

views following that guide.

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3. The Focus on the Pre-Sorbonne Period

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That leaves the issue of the focus on the “early works.” This book will examine the role

that idealism plays in Merleau-Ponty’s thought in his “Pre-Sorbonne Period.” This period runs

from the beginning of his philosophical career until his taking a position at the Sorbonne in

1949.14 The Pre-Sorbonne Period is the time during which Merleau-Ponty published his most

famous work, Phenomenology, and its predecessor, Structure. In terms of writings, this period

14. I have taken the term “Pre-Sorbonne Period” from Ted Toadvine and Leonard Lawlor, “Editor’s Introduction,”
The Merleau-Ponty Reader, eds. Toadvine and Lawlor, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press (2007).
Toadvine and Lawlor divide Merleau-Ponty’s work into three periods that are determined primarily by his academic
employment: the Pre-Sorbonne Period, the Sorbonne Period, and the Collège de France Period.

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also contains a few small publications written prior to Structure (which was completed in 1938

though not published until 1942). There are also a number of articles and essays published

around the time of Phenomenology (which came out in 1945) through 1948, many of which were

collected by Merleau-Ponty in the 1948 book Sense and Non-Sense.15

This specific division is somewhat arbitrary from a philosophical point of view, as it is

based on Merleau-Ponty’s academic employment. There is no clear philosophical turn that

occurs in 1949. Furthermore, the choice to focus on the earliest period leaves out some of

Merleau-Ponty’s most important works. In some cases, these texts directly discuss idealism;

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most obvious here are the Nature lecture notes.16 It would seem that a full discussion of

Merleau-Ponty’s relation to idealism would have to take account of his complete oeuvre, and
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strictly speaking this is correct. Thus, the current work does not present a complete study of

Merleau-Ponty’s relation to idealist philosophy. Despite this, there are a few reasons to justify

limiting the study to the Pre-Sorbonne Period.

First, this period contains Merleau-Ponty’s most significant works, in terms of their
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impact on the overall scholarship. While one might debate the philosophical merits of Merleau-

Ponty’s early versus late thought, there is no question that Phenomenology has had the largest
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impact on the scholarship of any of Merleau-Ponty’s works.17 Phenomenology is also the focus

of much of the recent literature on Merleau-Ponty’s idealism. It thus must be thoroughly

15. Merleau-Ponty, Sense and Non-Sense, trans. Hubert Dreyfus and Patricia Allen Dreyfus, Evanston, IL:
Northwestern University Press (1964). For a full record of Merleau-Ponty’s works from this period (and beyond)
see the extensive bibliography, in French, in Emmanuel de Saint Aubert, Du lien des êtres aux éléments de l’être:
Merleau-Ponty au tournant des années 1945–1951, Paris: Librairie Philosophique Vrin (2015).
16. Merleau-Ponty, Nature: Course Notes from the Collège de France, trans. Robert Vallier, Evanston,
IL: Northwestern University Press (2003).
17. For a very imprecise indication of this fact (which focuses just on the English translations), at the time of writing
Phenomenology has nearly four times (40,118 to 10,917) more citations on Google Scholar than the main late work,
The Visible and Invisible (trans. Alphonso Lingis, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press (1968).).

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considered in any examination of Merleau-Ponty’s idealism. And any thorough consideration of

idealism in Phenomenology ought to consider its immediate context.

From the point of view of providing context for Phenomenology, the single most

important work from this period is Structure. While the two works differ in style and aim, they

clearly come from a single stream of research. In many respects Structure is preparatory for and

sets the stage for Phenomenology. This is particularly the case for the consideration of

transcendental idealism in Phenomenology; Structure works toward, and ends with, a call for a

new transcendental philosophy which Phenomenology then picks up. I also believe that

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Structure is an important work in its own right and that it is too often ignored in the literature.

We thus have two substantive reasons for focusing on the Pre-Sorbonne Period:
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Phenomenology must be given a significant hearing due to its overall importance and Structure

ought to be considered so that it can be given its due. While these points justify including the

early works they do not on their own justify limiting the study to the early works. This is where

practical considerations come in. Any work that takes account of idealism in the whole of
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Merleau-Ponty’s oeuvre would either cover certain works superficially, or would end up being

very large. This book aims to avoid superficiality in the analysis of Merleau-Ponty’s early
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works, and in particular dedicates a lot of space to Structure and Phenomenology. While being

large is not necessarily a bad thing in itself, limiting the study to the Pre-Sorbonne Period should

make the text much more manageable for the reader and writer. As it stands, the combination of

thorough analysis of Structure and Phenomenology along with a consideration of the milieu in

which those books were produced leads to a work of significant length. If more properly

considered content were added, the study would risk becoming unwieldy.

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 There is one other reason for limiting the study that is perhaps most important. The book

is focusing on transcendental idealism in particular. One might find other forms of idealism to

be operative in Merleau-Ponty’s works, given, for instance, that he wrote on Hegel and

Schelling.18 But a stronger connection can be made between Merleau-Ponty’s early works and

transcendental idealism. While Merleau-Ponty is overtly critical of idealism, he openly

embraces transcendental philosophy in Structure and Phenomenology. Those works are also

heavily influenced by thinkers—Kant and Husserl—who construed their philosophies as versions

of transcendental idealism. Also, as will be discussed in chapter three below, Merleau-Ponty

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was “raised” academically in a milieu that was heavily influenced by Léon Brunschvicg’s critical

idealism. Critical idealism, while different from transcendental idealism in key respects, had a
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closeness to it via roots in Kant.

There is another substantive reason for limiting the study to the Pre-Sorbonne Period.

Merleau-Ponty would, in his later works, come to criticize his earlier views because they over-

emphasized the role of consciousness. For example, in a working note from July 1959 he wrote
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that “the problems posed in Ph.P. [Phenomenology] are insoluble because I start there from the

‘consciousness’-‘object’ distinction.”19 This rejection of the emphasis on consciousness would

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appear to mark a strong departure from transcendental idealism. Given that the focus of this

book is transcendental idealism, it would thus make sense to not consider the later works which

depart from that view. This potential shift in Merleau-Ponty’s thought raises significant

18. For writings on Hegel, see, e.g., Merleau-Ponty, “Hegel’s Existentialism” and “Concerning Marxism,” both in
Sense and Non-Sense, 63–70 and 99–124 respectively. On Schelling, see Merleau-Ponty, Nature, 36–51. For an
overview of Merleau-Ponty’s late connection to Schelling see William Hamrick and Jan Van der Veken, Nature and
Logos: A Whiteheadian Key to Merleau-Ponty’s Fundamental Thought, Albany: SUNY Press (2011) 123–144.
19. Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, 200.

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questions for how we should think about his earlier works; this issue will be further considered in

the conclusion of this book.

It remains a bit arbitrary to break the study off at 1949 on the basis of Merleau-Ponty

taking new academic employment. It does mark a reasonable stopping point, however, insofar as

Phenomenology is the latest major text to be considered in this book. The essays and lectures

that follow it are referenced only to flesh out context or bolster certain points made there or in

Structure. Texts from later periods will only be referenced in the conclusion, by way of

suggestion for further study, or when they are directly pertinent to the early work in a way that

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does not raise further questions outside the scope of the present analysis.
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4. Idealism, Realism, and Essential Manifestness

Idealism is the view that reality is mind-dependent. What this really entails will be

considered in much more detail in chapter one. I will initially note one important qualification

that is fundamental for this book, however. To genuinely count as version of idealism, the
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philosophical view under consideration must take reality to be in some way ontologically

dependent on the mind. Views that entail a merely epistemological dependence—for example,
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views that hold that all of our knowledge of reality is dependent upon our conceptual

frameworks—would not count as idealist.

“Ontological dependence” might bring to mind views, such as Berkeleyan

phenomenalism, wherein the existence of the external world is wholly dependent upon the mind.

Merleau-Ponty clearly holds that our bodies engage with a concrete world, and thus cannot hold

to such a strong view of mental dependence. But transcendental idealism differs from views like

phenomenalism; it embraces a form of ontological mind-dependence while also allowing for

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what I call “basic realism” (the very general idea that some mind-independent reality exists).

Lucy Allais (primarily in the book Manifest Reality) interprets Kant’s transcendental idealism as

fitting ontological mind-dependence and basic realism together in a unique way which is central

to my interpretation of Merleau-Ponty’s thought. I will present her view’s general terms here

(setting the discussion of Kant to the side), in order to set the stage for the rest of this book.

Allais presents a novel way of combining a genuine ontological claim about the mind-

dependence of reality with basic realism. The key to this interpretation is what she calls

“essential manifestness.” On this view, experience presents us with “essentially manifest

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qualities,” that are “relational qualities which are partly dependent on how…objects are in

themselves and partly dependent on subjects (and also environmental context).”20 Her
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explanation of essential manifestness is first built on a discussion of color perception.21 On the

one hand, color perception clearly bears a subjective element and thus seems mind-dependent.

Because color is not accessed by any other modality it must be essentially visual, and if it is

essentially visual then it is essentially tied to our perception of it. On the other hand, though,
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color is clearly experienced as a property of objects. I experience blue as being in the sky, not as

being in me, when I look at the sky. This sets color apart from other essentially subjective
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qualities like pain, which we experience as properties of ourselves. It prima facie appears that

the reality of color is both mind-dependent yet also essentially connected to something outside

the mind. The essentially manifest conception of color embraces this prima facie aspect. Color is

a property of objects, but it is a relational properly that is only made manifest when it is

perceived. There must be something in the sky itself that appears to me as blue. The sky which

appears as blue has being independent of me or any other color perceiver. But the sky as

20. Ibid., 122.

21. See Ibid., 125–131.

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genuinely blue only has being insofar as it is related to me or some other color perceiver. There

is thus a mind-dependent and mind-independent element of color.

Of course, this consideration of color does not get us all of the way to idealism. If we

accept this way of thinking of color, or even if we accept this kind of view of all so-called

secondary qualities, it does not entail that all experience is mind dependent. The above point

regarding color must generalize to all experiential qualities.22 All of our experience is composed

of relational qualities that present external objects as they appear to us. These objects have being

apart from us, and this grounds our ability to experience them. But it is also a part of their being,

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a part of what those objects are, that when they appear to us they do so in ways that only exist via

that relation.
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Allais’s interpretation thus allows for a genuine sense of basic realism, insofar as there

are aspects of objects themselves that ground our experiences. Insofar as we can only experience

those aspects via the mind-dependent properties, we cannot know what they are like apart from

their relation to our minds. Her point is summarized in the following passage (keeping in mind
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that the claim about color is meant to generalize):

Kant says both that appearances represent things and that they do not represent things as
they are in themselves. The essential manifestness view explains this. The idea that red is
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essentially manifest means that perceptual appearings of red do not present mind-
independent things as they are in themselves; redness is a quality that belongs only to
appearances. Experience of red things does not reveal or manifest the mind-independent
qualities that are responsible for, or appear as, red. This means we cannot identify redness
with its mind-independent grounds, and it also means that redness does not represent this
ground as it is in itself. There is thus a sense in which colour presents things, things
themselves, but it does not present them as they are in themselves.23

22. Lucy Allais, Manifest Reality: Kant’s Idealism and his Realism, Oxford: Oxford University Press (2015) 125.
23. Ibid., 130

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I would like to highlight the last sentence of this quote, because it is crucial that color presents

things themselves. The fact that there is an external world apart from us is presented in

experience; this idea plays a key role in this book’s interpretation of Merleau-Ponty.

The essential manifestness view is dependent upon a relational account of perception

which holds that any “perceptual mental state is not merely a modification of an inner state of a

subject but a relational state essentially involving the object and a conscious subject.”24 On this

kind of view, perception involves a direct relation with external objects and thus grounds the

possibility of the type of relational state she associates with essential manifestness. This puts

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Allais’s view clearly in touch with Merleau-Ponty’s thought.25 Consider the discussion of

perception as “communion” in Phenomenology. Merleau-Ponty says that “I offer my ear or my

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gaze with the anticipation of a sensation, and suddenly the sensible catches my ear or my gaze; I

deliver over a part of my body, or even my entire body, to this manner of vibrating and of filling

space named ‘blue’ or ‘red.’”26 He then draws an analogy between the perceptual body-world

relation and “the real presence of God”; “sensation is, literally, a communion.27” As Keith Allen
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points out, the fact that Merleau-Ponty is drawing an analogy with the Roman Catholic view of

the eucharist (“real presence”) is significant. On Protestant views the eucharist merely
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“represents” Christ; by linking perception to the Catholic view Merleau-Ponty is emphasizing

that “sensible objects become present to sensing subjects.”28 This perhaps unusual analogy is

meant to strongly drive home the point that perceptual states are not representations in the sense

of inner intermediaries; they are directly related to the world.

24. Ibid., 106. Allais is quoting John Campbell, Reference and Consciousness, Oxford: Clarendon Press (2002) 117.
25. For an overview of the similarities between Merleau-Ponty’s views and contemporary relational views see Keith
Allen, “Merleau-Ponty and Naïve Realism,” Philosopher’s Imprint, 19:2 (2019) 1–25.
26. PP, 219.
27. PP, 219.
28. Allen, “Merleau-Ponty and Naïve Realism,” 4.

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 Yet, as will be repeatedly noted throughout this book, Merleau-Ponty also claims that

perceptual qualities are dependent upon our bodily engagement with them. For example, the

paragraph that ends with the reference to sensation being a literal communion opens with the

claim that “prior to being an objective spectacle, the quality allows itself to be recognized by a

type of behavior that intends it essentially.”29 The implication is that my bodily behavior is

required for making the perceptual quality appear. Thus, there is a “real presence” of the thing in

my perception, but my perception allows certain qualities to become manifest. Following this

point, the interpretations of Structure and Phenomenology in this book will depend on attributing

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an essential manifestness view to Merleau-Ponty’s thought that meshes with his emphasis on

embodiment. It is fundamental to my interpretation that the relation between embodied minds

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and an independent reality allows certain elements of being to be manifested.

5. The Structure of the Text

This book will argue that Merleau-Ponty’s early works employ a form of
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transcendental idealism that depends upon a version of the essential manifestness view. A key

element of this interpretation will involve showing that his overt criticisms of idealism are aimed
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at particular ideas which, while often aligned with versions of idealism, are not obligatory for

idealism in general. While Merleau-Ponty does not construe his views this way, he could have

presented his view as a form of idealism that overcomes these problematic aspects while

retaining the truth of idealism. And I believe that Merleau-Ponty does assert the truth of

idealism (though using other words).

29. PP, 219.

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 To pursue such an interpretation, one first needs to know what they mean by “idealism”

and “transcendental.” Thus, defining idealism will be the task of chapter one. This definition

cannot avoid being somewhat stipulative. “Idealism” is a contested term and it is likely

impossible to provide a definition that all will accept. Ultimately, I am not sure that this is a

problem. I am confident that I correctly use the term “idealism,” and I will give reasons to

support this. But I am more concerned with the interpretation of Merleau-Ponty than I am with

making people agree with my definition of idealism. If someone were to fully agree with my

interpretation yet insist on using a term other than “idealism,” the largest part of my aims would

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be met.

With the definition of transcendental idealism in place, Part I of the book will focus on
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Merleau-Ponty’s publications prior to Phenomenology. Chapter two will examine considerations

of idealism in Merleau-Ponty’s earliest works. The first point of this is to catalogue and discuss

all of the direct, explicit references to idealism in those works. The second point is to try to

understand what, exactly, Merleau-Ponty is referring to when he mentions “critical idealism” or

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“transcendental idealism” by examining their historical context. Importantly, this will include a

consideration of Brunschvicg’s thought, as his massive influence on early 20th Century French
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philosophy is under-appreciated in the scholarship. Chapter two’s contextual/historical

discussion will also consider Merleau-Ponty’s early thoughts on Kant and Husserl, because of

the obviously central role those thinkers play in forming his relationship to transcendental

idealism.

Chapters three and four more deeply examine the ways in which transcendental idealism

is operative in Structure. Chapter three presents an overarching interpretation of Structure as

embodying a kind of “transcendental turn” that sets the stage for Phenomenology. In brief, I

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argue that the analysis of psychology entails a holistic conception of nature that emphasizes how

living organisms structure their interface with their environments. In the midst of this

discussion, however, Merleau-Ponty recognizes that there is a problem with third-person

observational discussions insofar as they do not properly consider the extent to which the

perspective of the observer structures the investigation. This leads to the view that human

beings, as philosophical and scientific observers, find meaning present in nature for us, from our

perspectives. This then leads to the preliminary discussion of a more general transcendental

view.

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In presenting this interpretation, chapter three ignores some problems for transcendental

idealism that arise within Structure. Chapter four takes up those problems. First, it considers the
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possibility that while Merleau-Ponty discusses “consciousness,” he is actually reworking

traditional views of the mind to an extent that undermines idealism. Second, it considers some

remarks Merleau-Ponty makes regarding the problem of anthropomorphism is our examinations

of nature, which lead to the possibility that he wants to find nature as meaningful in itself, apart
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from any human perspective on it. Third, the chapter considers the possibility that Merleau-

Ponty’s use of scientific studies undermines the transcendental aspirations of his view, by
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improperly conflating empirical and transcendental reasoning. The ultimate upshot of the

chapter is that each of these issues can be acceptably responded to by, or accommodated within,

my transcendental idealist interpretation.

Part II focuses on Phenomenology, and makes up the majority of the book. It follows a

similar strategy to Part I’s discussion of Structure. First there is an examination of

Phenomenology’s explicit references to idealism, then there is a presentation of a positive

transcendental idealist interpretation of the text, and then there is a deeper consideration of

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problems in the text that arise for that interpretation. Because of the extent of Phenomenology’s

references to idealism and the overall depth of that work, though, this strategy is played out

through multiple chapters.

Chapter five will examine the overt critique of idealism in Phenomenology, as developed

in its explicit references to that concept. This will build on the historical/contextual discussion of

chapter two. One of my main arguments is that while Merleau-Ponty primarily criticizes

“idealism” in Phenomenology without qualifying it as “critical idealism” as he does in Structure,

the referent is typically the same. To put the point a different way, I think one must understand

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Phenomenology’s references to idealism as primarily criticizing views like Brunschvicg’s, even

though that is not explicit. Chapter five will also begin to show that Phenomenology implicitly
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embraces aspects of transcendental idealism while idealism is being overtly rejected.

Chapter six opens with a general overview of Phenomenology’s arguments, and the

transcendental idealist interpretation is situated in relation to this overview. In brief, the

interpretive structure presented in chapter six is as follows. In the Introduction, Merleau-Ponty

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presents his version of phenomenological analysis. This entails an explication of pre-objective

experience, via an analysis of psychological research and a critique of empiricism and

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intellectualism. Pre-objective experience is revealed to be dependent upon the transcendental

structures of our embodied subjective perspective. Parts One and Two of Phenomenology further

analyze these structures, starting from the point of view of the body in Part One and the world in

Part Two. Part Three then deepens the analyses of Parts One and Two by, primarily, clarifying

the transcendental status of embodied consciousness in Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of the cogito,

and with the discussion of the primary transcendental role played by temporality. As with the

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discussion of Structure in chapter three, certain problems that arise in Phenomenology are

temporarily set to the side so that the full interpretation can be first elaborated in chapter six.

Chapter seven takes up the first set of problems for the transcendental idealist

interpretation by focusing on consciousness and subjectivity. The aim is to further justify that

Merleau-Ponty holds to what I call (based on chapter one) the thesis of transcendental

perspectivism. It will show that Merleau-Ponty’s references to “anonymous” or “impersonal”

structures operative “beneath” subjectivity do not (despite some appearances) support an anti-

idealist view. The chapter will also fit Merleau-Ponty’s broader claims about subjectivity and

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temporality into the transcendental idealist interpretation and end by arguing that there is a basic

way in which Merleau-Ponty takes our embodied subjective perspective to be fundamental and

ineliminable.
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Chapter eight focuses on the specifically transcendental element of Phenomenology.

Transcendental idealism holds not just that reality is only experienced via our perspective, but

also that we can analyze the structures of that perspective (e.g. what Kant called conditions of
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possibility). While chapter six will present a framework for interpreting Phenomenology as

engaging in such transcendental analysis, chapter eight will examine the problems for this view.
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Specifically, it will clarify Merleau-Ponty’s sometimes confusing take on philosophical

reflection (and its limits) and examine how he can coherently combine empirical research with

transcendental analysis.

Chapter nine will complete the analysis of Phenomenology. It will first examine the

holistic ontology that is (mostly implicitly) presented in the text, and show how that ontology is

compatible with the primacy of embodied subjectivity. This discussion will also connect the

ontological claims in Phenomenology with Allais essential manifestness view. This discussion

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of ontology will require examining Merleau-Ponty’s views on perspective, which (via the

consideration of the perspectives of others) will lead directly to a discussion of intersubjectivity.

The chapter will thus end with an analysis of the transcendental role played by intersubjectivity

in Merleau-Ponty’s thought.

Finally, the book will end with a brief conclusion that will summarize the main results of

the previous chapters, especially with an aim to clearly stating, one final time, why Merleau-

Ponty’s philosophy should be referred to as an idealism. The conclusion will also look beyond

the analysis of the Pre-Sorbonne works in two ways. First, I will briefly consider the relationship

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between the Pre-Sorbonne works and Merleau-Ponty’s later works. Second, I will briefly

consider how one might apply the view presented in this book to contemporary philosophical

research.
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I hope that readers will find it worthwhile to work through all of these chapters. Some

readers may come to the text looking for specific aspects of my interpretation, though, so I will

finish with some suggestions for how selections of the book can be coherently singled out. First,
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chapter one’s discussion of idealism can be read independently of the study of Merleau-Ponty.

Hopefully it will prove useful to those who, like me, have struggled with determining exactly
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what idealism is before considering how that term applies to different thinkers. Those interested

in Merleau-Ponty can pick out different parts of the book due to their specific focus. Chapter

two should be useful for those interested in Merleau-Ponty’s earliest works and their historical

background even if they are not particularly interested in idealism. Those interested solely in my

interpretation of Structure could reasonably read Part One on its own (minimally one should also

read §§ 6–7 of chapter one to understand my interpretive framework). Similarly, those interested

solely in Phenomenology could reasonably read Part Two on its own (though again one should

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 probably read the last two sections of chapter one). And if someone wants to know, at a

minimum, what my interpretation of Phenomenology is in its basics, one could read chapter six

on its own. Of course, this will leave many questions unanswered, but it will present a coherent

overview of the transcendental idealist interpretation.

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