Volume 64, Issue 1, March 2024
Douglas Low
Pages 17-31
https://doi.org/10.5840/ipq20241211240
Merleau-Ponty¡¯s Consideration of the Crisis of Western Thought
Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty each consider what was taken to be the decline of Western thought. The works of Husserl and Heidegger will be briefly considered, along with Merleau-Ponty¡¯s evaluation of his two great predecessors, while Merleau-Ponty¡¯s philosophy will be featured here in some detail. The case will be made that Merleau-Ponty challenges the veracity of Western thought but finds in it the seeds of a new form of rationality. What Merleau-Ponty regards as a rationality that focused exclusively on abstract rational principles to the extent that specific circumstances were ignored is rejected for a new form of rationality, one that is rooted in the body¡¯s perceptual engagement with the world. How Merleau-Ponty defines this new form of rationality will be explored.