Research project for a diagnosis of our current incarnation in the light of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy

• Grant number: 14/17192-2
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: December 01, 2014
• End date: November 30, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Reinaldo Furlan
• Grantee: Reinaldo Furlan
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The project aims at extending the concept of flesh present in Merleau-Ponty, in particular in its ontology, to the political dimension of contemporary social life. We begin with a preliminary survey of what would be one of the dominant meanings of our present life, through the concept of individualism, and one of the main points of analysis in the first stage of our research is based on Aurelien Berlan's work about the concepts of community and society elaborated in the work of the german sociologist Ferdinand Tonnies. It is with this work we introduce a first horizon on the problem to be investigated, particularly by questioning the affective quality of our social relations, marked by personal detachment or anonymity of our relationships, and, above all, the competition and consequent mistrust in our relationships, from the modern western society. Another point we highlight, and which contemplates more precisely one of the main goals of our research takes place through the work of Michael Foessel by which we introduce the discussion of the articulation between the concepts of "desire", "body schema" and "flesh", present in our project, with the idea of "world" expressed by Foessel. Foessel criticizes the philosophies of life, which had an extraordinary expansion in recent decades, as being insufficient to answer the crucial question about the construction of a world, in crisis and threatened at the present time. The author suspects the movement of the philosophies of life as a symptom of "narrowing of the field of possibilities, and therefore a forgetfulness of the world." Well, we highlight Merleau-Ponty's philosophy as an example of connection not only possible, but also essential between a philosophy of life and a social or "world" philosophy. That is to say, to Merleau-Ponty life only realizes itself as world construction, and the example we emphasize in his philosophy is that the notion of libido, taken from the Freudian psychoanalysis, means above all, before the possibility of a discharge of pleasure, a state of connection or a gestalt with the other and the world. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

REINALDO FURLAN. A importância da discussão sobre a noção de sujeito: Foucault, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty. Educ. Pesqui., v. 43, n. 4, p. 1035-1054, 2016-09-26. (14/17192-2)

REINALDO FURLAN. Reflexões sobre o método nas ciências humanas: quantitativo ou qualitativo, teorias e ideologias. Psicologia USP, v. 28, n. 1, p. 83-92, 2017-04-00. (14/17192-2)