Beyond the borders between rationalism and emotionalism: investigations of affectivity for a psychology through Merleau-Ponty philosophy

Author(s)

Marcelo Georgétti Vieira

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Ribeirão Preto.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (PCARP/BC)
• Defense date: 2014-08-07

Examining board members

Reinaldo Furlan; Luiz Damon Santos Moutinho; Wanderley Cardoso de Oliveira; Débora Cristina Morato Pinto; Danilo Saretta Verissimo

• Advisor: Reinaldo Furlan

Abstract

The aim of this research is to verify and demonstrate based on our main author\'s texts (Merleau-Ponty), as well as on his commenters\', the following hypothesis: if one considers Merleau-Ponty\'s assumptions on affectivity throughout his writings in the 40s as a scenery or a background to our discussions, the notion of role (rôle) - present mainly in his political texts during the second half of that decade - becomes not only a figure inside the philosopher\'s ideas but also achieves a central position in the proposal to consider an existentialist ethics inspired by Merleau-Ponty\'s philosophy. Although it is possible to identify in a few commenters references to the notion of role as a direction to formulate a merleau-pontyene\'s ethical thinking, the originality of our propposal consists on attaching to that notion the affectivity\'s referencial. As a result, we reach the conception of an affective subjectivity, free from modernity\'s rational prejudices, which, on the other hand, does not guide us to a solipsism reduced to a setting of emotional states. On the contrary, we face the conceptual formulation of an affective intentionallity whose practical development mediated by social roles implies in an overture to the world and to otherness, which occurs as much in an ontological way as in some sort of operational reasoning concerning a basically embodied subjectivity that only express itself through concrete experience of coexistence. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 11/08534-9 - Beyond the borders between rationalism and emotionalism: investigations on affectivity for a psychology through Merleau-Pontys Philosophy
• Grantee: Marcelo Georgétti Vieira
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate