The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast PREMIUM-Episode 48: Merleau-Ponty on Perception and Knowledge
Dec 17, 2011
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Perception Contains Nascent Rationality
- Perception already contains a form of logos rather than being raw data later shaped by intellect.
- Merleau-Ponty locates rationality as nascent within perceptual experience itself.
The Buffalo Example Of Direct Perception
- Merleau-Ponty uses the buffalo example to show we directly perceive objects, not infer them from raw sensations.
- He argues we see the buffalo as a buffalo without conscious induction or stepwise inference.
Perception Precedes Subject Formation
- Perception is prior to the formation of the reflecting subject and collapses subject-object at a basic level.
- Merleau-Ponty treats perception as the precondition from which subjectivity and objectivity emerge.