The autochthonous structure of the perceptual sense: dissonances between Merleau-Ponty and Gurwitsch

• Grant number: 19/11870-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: November 01, 2019
• End date: October 31, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Fundamentals and Assessments in Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Danilo Saretta Verissimo
• Grantee: Pedro Henrique Santos Decanini Marangoni
• Supervisor: Etienne Bimbenet
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL-ASSIS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Assis. Assis , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: École Normale Supérieure, Paris (ENS), France
• Associated to the scholarship: 17/15348-3 - The participation of corporality in the perceptive processes: counterpoints between Gurwitsch and Merleau-Ponty., BP.DR

Abstract

The goal of this project of internship and research abroad is to investigate the problem of the autonomy of the perceptive sense in the works of Aron Gurwitsch and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Specifically, it is a question of delimiting and analyzing their interpretive similarities and dissonances around the subject of the self-organization of the perceptual experience. For both authors the perceptive sense is rooted in its phenomenal manifestation. The meaningful expression of the perceived field is spontaneous and self-organized, independent, therefore, from external factors to its own configuration. The genesis of this idea points to an epistemological inheritance common to the two philosophers, derived mainly from Gestalt psychology and Husserl's phenomenology. Within this theoretical background co-present to the thinkers, their interpretive differences are also emphasized, which are constituted both from the consideration of the functional aspects of perception, and the role of corporeity in thematic selection, as well as on methodological questions related to understanding and use of the gestalt and phenomenological conceptual framework. These discussions intertwine with the current production of knowledge in the fields of the history and philosophy of psychology, by way of clarification of psychological concepts within philosophical works, and in the area of cognitive sciences, insofar as these debates focus basic psychological processes in a non-reductionist perspective which comprises the organization of conscious experience by describing its lived structures, such as temporality, intentionality, and movement.