Abstract
Merleau-Ponty's political philosophy readily lends itself to division into two main periods. The first, Marxian, period began in 1944 and ended in mid 1950. The second, post-Marxian or “liberal,” period began in mid 1950 and lasted until his death in 1961.
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Notes
Kerry H. Whiteside, Merleau-Ponty and the Foundation of an Existential Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 279. Hereafter cited as MPF. My criticisms notwithstanding, Whiteside's work is an exceptionally valuable contribution to Merleau-Pontyan scholarship. His criticism of Merleau-Ponty's later political philosophy is briefly foreshadowed by that of Martin Jay, though there is no evidence that Whiteside depends on Jay. See Jay, Marxism and Totality (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984), 382-383. Hereafter cited as MT.
MPF, 7. My emphasis.
It can be shown, I believe, that the later period of Merleau-Ponty's political thought is less discontinuous with the earlier period that Whiteside admits. For present purposes, I will not explicitly develop that argument. But the argument I will make will in fact contain elements which could well be educed to make such a case.
This description of violence is my own. In devising it I have tried to capture what Merleau-Ponty means by it. I have also been instructed by Sergio Cotta, Why Violence? tr. by Giovanni Gullace (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1985) though I have not adopted his conclusion.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Humanism and Terror, tr. by John O'Neill (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969) 88-89 and 102. Hereafter cited as HT. HT is the principal work in which Merleau-Ponty's early political thought is developed. Other important early essays of his bearing on politics, especially “Concerning Marxism” and “Marxism and Philosophy” are collected in his Sense and Non-Sense, tr. by Hubert L. Dreyfus and Patricia A. Dreyfus (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964). Hereafter cited in the body of the text as SNS.
See MT, 370.
Merleau-Ponty's use of Saussure's structuralism is sufficiently peculiar that his later view of history can be called “Saussurean” only in a heterodox sense. For instructive remarks on how Merleau-Ponty appropriated Saus-sure, see James M. Edie, “Foreword,“ in Merleau-Ponty, Consciousness and the Acquisition of Language, tr. by Hugh J. Silverman (Evanston: Northwestern University Press), 1973, xi-xxxii; and Edie, “The Meaning and Development of Merleau-Ponty's Concept of Structure” in Merleau-Ponty: Perception, Structure, Language, ed. by John Sallis (Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1981), 39-57.
MT, 366.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Adventures of the Dialectic, tr. by Joseph Bien (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), 26. Hereafter cited in the body of the text as AD.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Signs, tr. by Richard C. McCleary (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964), 20. Hereafter cited in the body of the text as S.
See also MT, 372-375.
I document this claim in my The Politics of Hope (London and New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986), 23-39. See also MT, 361-384.
Merleau-Ponty's root requirement is a special sort of procedural requirement. It is the “ur-procedural” requirement that all specific requirements, substantive and procedural, must satisfy if they are to be binding.
For a fuller discussion of the important distinction between holding a political position hypothetically and holding it categorically, see my “Ideology, Utopia, and Responsible Politics” in this volume.
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© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Dauenhauer, B.P. (1991). Merleau-Ponty on Politics, History, and Violence. In: Elements of Responsible Politics. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3564-1_4
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