<Articles>The Body and the Understanding of Others : The Phenomenology of Language in the Work of Merleau-Ponty

Abstract

This presentation aims to reconsider a link between the body and language in our understanding of others based upon the phenomenological framework of Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961). In Phénoménologie de la Perception (1945), Merleau-Ponty distinguishes the 'existential meaning' of language from the 'conceptual meaning', and claims that the former meaning is based not on 'pure thought' but on 'an attitude' towards the world. If, as Merleau-Ponty claims, language carries the 'existential meaning' associated with our existence, then this meaning must be embedded in our ways of living. If that is the case, how can we transcend differences in cultural background? To respond this question, we need to describe carefully how we can get the meaning of words or how the meaning emerges from words, speeches, or interactions. Merleau-Ponty tries to witness and describe the moment of meaning's emerging, which is a dialectic process or a circulative movement between the definition of the meaning of words and their creation, which is always accomplished by perception through the body and interaction with others, that is, in our lifeworld.