The Politics of the Flesh: Phenomenology, Tragedy & Beyond

Abstract

<p>We reconsider the work of French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty. And we argue for a non-foundational relation and solidarity between philosophy and the political within his work and the prose of the world.</p> <p>If Merleau-Ponty begins by privileging philosophy over the political, his work does not end with the privileging of the political over philosophy. Rather the come and go of man's interrogation of the one by the other and of the other by the other of the other comes to dominate discussion. The question of the very space of this come and go, interrogation and discussion ultimately organizes Merleau-Ponty's work.</p> <p>In that this space is neither object nor subject, all hitherto existing philosophy - phenomenology included - is called into question. If Marx and Hegel anticipate such radicalness, it is nonetheless through Saussure and Weber that Merleau-Ponty overcomes subjective thought or existing philosophy. This is not to privilege the object however. It is to turn back on Being or, as Merleau-Ponty says, the flesh. And this is not to privilege this Being or flesh. Man may be, as Pascal said, a reed. But man is an interrogative reed. It is man who interrogates the flesh that he might come to better terms with himself.</p> <p>What man must ultimately comes to terms with is, as Madison has suggested, his Promethean Urge. Radical thought and radical action - philosophy and revolutionary politics - seek to steal back from the gods the fire of reason said to be man's by right and nature. Merleau-Ponty's radicalness lies beyond this presumption. He teaches that "[a]lienation is not simply privation of what was our own by natural right; and to bring it to an end, it will not suffice to steal what has been stolen, to give us back our due."</p>