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Following from his rejection of dualism Merleau-Ponty argues that
thought is inseparable from language. He denies that we can have
concepts 'in the mind' before they are expressed or articulated
linguistically. New concepts are worked out in or through new
expressions which he calls collectively 'speaking word'; and he
regards this process as the creative manifestation of the
body-subject. Such expressions in due course add to the corpus of
social and public language — the 'spoken word'. However, just as he
allows for the conferring of meaning at a 'pre-conscious' level so he
attributes to the body a pre-linguistic understanding, a
'praktognosia' of its world — though this is an aspect of and
inseparable from the body's behaviour [PP, Pt. I, 3] [a]. Thought is
to the body's subjectivity as language is to its 'objective'
corporality, the two dimensions constituting one reality. He also
recognises that his concept of the body-subject is difficult to
articulate in so far as our language has built into it a bias towards
dualism. We must therefore struggle to create a new language in order
to express this central concept [b]. He later [CAL] draws on the
structuralist view that the meaning and usage of language has to be
grasped synchronically by reference to the relationship between signs
and not diachronically by reference to the history of linguistic
development; and he sees in this evidence or support for his own claim
that the body-subject is involved in a lived relation with the world,
because language here and now is, as it were, the living present in
speech. Merleau-Ponty's emphasis is thus on parole, that is the
'signified' — meaning which is 'enacted', as opposed to 'langue' which
refers to the total structure of 'signs' [c] — the meanings and words
which parole, as a set of individual speech-acts (be they English,
Chinese, or any other language), instantiates.
It is through language and its intersubjectivity that the
intentionality of the body-subject makes sense of the world. And he
makes it clear that language is to be understood in a wide sense as
including all 'signs', employed not only in literature but also in
art, science, indeed in the cultural dimension as a whole. Indeed the
significance of a created work lies in this intersubjectivity — in the
reader's or viewer's 're-creation' of it as well as in the work itself
as originally created by the writer or artist. Moreover, in an era
when science is increasingly alienating man from the real, language
and the arts in particular are particularly suited to be the means for
this revelation. Through the lived experience in which language is
articulated — in our actions, art, literature, and so on (that is, in
'beings' as signifiers) — it opens up to the Being of all things [see
The Visible and the Invisible]. Contemplated against the 'background
of silence', language then comes to be seen as a 'witness to Being'
[Signs] [d].
CRITICAL SUMMARY
For many years Merleau-Ponty's writings were undeservedly neglected
outside France. More recently, however, his merits as a philosopher
have been increasingly recognised — not least by many philosophers
working in the 'analytic' tradition (despite the complexity and
prolixity of his style — characteristic of much twentieth century
continental philosophy). Of particular significance are his rejection
of both rationlism/ idealism and positivistic and reductionist
empiricism, his concept of the 'body-subject' and a 'holistic' account
of perception and action as operating within the domain of
intersubjectivity, and his dialectical 'ontology of flesh'. He
accepted Husserl's epoché and phenomenological reduction but argued
that this leads not to a separated transcendental consciousness or ego
but to essences of 'lived experience'; and while emphasising the
Cartesian primacy of the self he sought to overcome dualist theories
(including Sartre's sharp distinction between the pour-soi and the en
soi) through an appeal to his doctrine of 'ambiguity', by which he
understands a theme or the meaning of a word as open to different
interpretations, depending on the context, none of which should be
regarded as privileged [a]. He was also critical of attempts to
reconcile existentialism and Marxism, arguing that a reworking of both
is needed.
Merleau-Ponty was probably aware of most of the contentious issues
raised by his thought, but owing to his untimely death he was unable
to complete a number of projects which most probably would have
addressed these. Two points in particular should be mentioned.
(1) (With reference to his early work) how transition from one
structural level to another is to be effected has, arguably, not been
fully worked out. But many commentators would accept that his account
of degrees of rationality and of freedom of the body-subject acting
within the constraints of causal determinism might prove to be more
successful in resolving the seemingly intractable problem of dualism
while avoiding the difficulties of reductive naturalist theories.
(2) Some critics maintain that an unresolved tension remains between
the extremes of a 'subjective' idealism and an 'objective' realism.
This might well be seen to be compounded by his later acceptance of a
structuralist account of language, in so far as the distinction
between the lived experience of the subject and the described
experience articulated through language (parole) and 'meanings' is
itself made within the linguistic framework. This would seem to
prevent access to the objective world of the 'other'.
....
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962) Phenomenology of Perception.
Translation, Colin Smith. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1963) The Structure of Behaviour.
Translation, Alden Fisher. Boston: Beacon Press.
http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:1MvhdtxRERIJ:www.afls.net/cahiers/10.2/IRAIDE%2520cahiers%252010.2.doc+merleau+ponty+lexical+semantics&cd=19&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=gmail
Cognitive Linguistics explains the link between perception and
cognition in these two examples on the basis of our conceptual
organisation. We perceive and understand these two processes as
related. On the basis of our experience as human beings, we see
similarities between vision and knowledge, and it is because of these
similarities that we conceptualise them as related concepts. For
cognitive linguists, language is not structured arbitrarily. It is
motivated and grounded more or less directly in experience, in our
bodily, physical, social, and cultural experiences because after all,
“we are beings of the flesh” (Johnson 1992: 347). This notion of a
‘grounding’ is known in Cognitive Linguistics as ‘embodiment’
(Johnson, 1987; Lakoff, 1987; Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, 1999) and
finds its philosophical roots in the phenomenological tradition
(Merleau-Ponty, 1962, 1963; cf. also Varela, Thompson and Rosch,
1993). Its basic idea is that mental and linguistic categories are not
abstract, disembodied and human independent categories; we create them
on the basis of our concrete experiences and under the constraints
imposed by our bodies.
This kind of embodiment corresponds to one of the three levels that
Lakoff and Johnson (1999: 103) call the ‘embodiment of concepts’. It
is the ‘phenomenological level’ which:
consists of everything we can be aware of, especially our own
mental states,
our bodies, our environment, and our physical and social interactions.
This is the level at which one can speak about the feel of experience,
the distinctive qualities of experiences, and the way in which things
appear to us. There are two more levels of embodiment: the ‘neural
embodiment’ which deals with structures that define concepts and
operations at the neural level6, and the ‘cognitive unconscious’ which
concerns all mental operations that structure and make possible all
conscious experience. According to these authors it is only by means
of descriptions and explanations at these three levels that one can
achieve a full understanding of the mind.
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