Phenomenology and ontology: the transformations of correlational a priori in Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy

• Grant number: 16/15714-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: October 01, 2016
• End date: February 01, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - History of Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Luiz Damon Santos Moutinho
• Grantee: José Luiz Bastos Neves
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Our goal is to analyze the transformations of the correlational a priori in Merleau-Ponty's work, using this concept as a guiding thread in order to circumscribe the problems involved in the passage from a phenomenology of perception to an ontology of sensible being. In this project, we shall examine at first the difficulties brought about by Merleau-Ponty's earliests descriptions of intentional correlation, still attached to an Husserlian framework of philosophy of consciousness. We'll note the consequences they bring to the notion of transcendence, still secretly attached, in this period of Merleau-Ponty's work, to phenomenological subjectivism. Secondly, we'll show how the author is led to an ontological reworking of this correlation, centred on the concept of reversibility. At this moment, our investigation turns itself to Merleau-Ponty's ontology of flesh. We shall investigate the relation between this late ontology and Merleau-Ponty's earliest phenomenology, defined as a descriptive and intuicionist discourse. Which reasons lies under Merleau-Ponty's late thesis, according to which there must be an ontological foundation of phenomenological correlation between subject and object? What is the nature of such a requirement? Is it a simple regression to pre-critical or dogmatic ontology? It is this set of issues that we intend to address by examining the fate of correlational priori in Merleau-Ponty's later period, comparing it with the answer given to it by some of his interpreters. This will further lead us towards a survey on the current state of French phenomenology (particularly of Renaud Barbaras's phenomenology of life). (AU)