Merleau-Ponty—The Phenomenology of Perception, Empiricism and Intellectualism
Abstract
Maurice Merleau-Ponty was a French philosopher—a leading figure in existentialism and phenomenology, his philosophy of phenomenology mainly focused on the relation between the body and the mind. Yet Merleau-Ponty’s theory differs from empiricism and rationalism, it is a position in between them yet he criticized both empiricism and intellectualism. Drawing from both empiricism and intellectualism, he tried to overcome the shortcomings of them. This essay explains his argument for the primacy of perception and body and identifies the differences between Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, empiricism and intellectualism.References
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