Defense Date
12-9-2019
Graduation Date
Spring 5-8-2020
Availability
Immediate Access
Submission Type
dissertation
Degree Name
PhD
Department
Philosophy
School
McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts
Committee Chair
Lanei Rodemeyer
Committee Member
Frederick Evans
Committee Member
Anthony Steinbock
Keywords
nature, evidence, operative intentionality, phenomenology, ontology
Abstract
In my dissertation, I show that Merleau-Ponty’s idea of nature yields a double meaning: nature as ensemble of genetic and productive processes that are attainable in experience (phenomenal nature) and nature as that which enables this experience (transcendental nature). My thesis is that the two meanings of nature, when taken together, offer a guide to Merleau-Ponty’s final philosophical formulations about “flesh” and the “visible” and the “invisible.” The aim of the dissertation is to trace the salient conceptual and methodological complications entailed by this conception. I argue that the bivalence of the problem of nature in Merleau-Ponty receives a methodological clarification and proves coherent if we pay attention to the way Merleau-Ponty understands the thrust of radicalization in play in Husserl’s later work in phenomenology, especially regarding his expansion of the notion of intentionality.
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Rotundo, A. (2020). The Problem of Nature in the Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/1868