Research On Embodiment Of Merleau-Ponty Phenomenology

Research On Embodiment Of Merleau-Ponty PhenomenologyEpistemology has always been the main parts of the western philosophical problems that have troubled generations of philosophers. Since Descartes, there was a radical change in the western philosophy for the relationship between ontology and epistemology. Epistemology was no longer attached to ontology as a auxiliary theory just like what Greek philosophy did, on the quiet contrary that ontology would and could be established only by"I think"which is original power to constitute the world. Thus, such typical epistemological problems as what is knowledge?; How can we attain knowledge?; How is the world constituted? have been the priorities of philosophy. Although the relationship between ontology and epistemology was radically changed, binary separation of body and mind for knowledge attainable had run through from the ancient Greek philosophy to Descartes'times. Along with this dramatical change, the external relationship between ontology and epistemology turned out to be the internal one. The ancient Greek philosophy most favored ontology, based on which epistemological problems were discussed. However, modern philosophy began with establishing a starting point from which cognition took place, and ontologies were derived. Only from this starting point could ontologies be derived and established.Both intellectualism and empiricism thought Mind as a cognitive entity and body as a mechanical object. But both schools were faced the same difficult problems that what mind is, as well as the relationship of body and mind. As a mathematician, Descartes found that the pure thinking was enough to attain knowledge, and which knowledge was the same form of the pure thinking. As for Descartes, the true knowledge was nothing but the conceptual knowledge. The true world which was ideal one was constituted in the mind. If we in the sense of Descartes understand what knowledge is, what knowledge can be possible, we can not be wrong in saying that there must be a pure form by which knowledge can be possible and which knowledge is the identity of difference. We can not make sense of knowledge until we realize what the pure form is. Knowledge was the transformation of the pure form. In order to establish his epistemology, Descartes had to find a place in which thinking could be located. Of course, it was easy for him to do because mind/soul as a cognitive entity enjoyed a long traditional history in the western philosophy. However, what was difference between Descartes'philosophy and Greek philosophy, as well as the medieval philosophy, mind/soul as for the former was the original form constituting all, and mind/soul as for the later two was a knowing entity in order to know about all. As far as Descartes'critical attitude about how knowledge is possible was concerned, contribution that Descartes made was that the pure form should be found or created to explain how knowledge is attainted. Further more, what was important was that the creation of the pure form eliminated dualism of subject and object.However, when Descartes took the true knowledge as the pure form of mind, what was difference between the conceptual knowledge and the factual knowledge given that the latter is also intellectual activities of mind? Otherwise, the factual knowledge can't be the knowledge. But, as the same and one mind, how mind presented itself differently for the sake'various knowledge. Based on the critical attitude towards those questions, Husserl created the phenomenology. According to Husserl, the division line between the conceptual knowledge and the factual knowledge didn't lie in the thinking but in the pure core of the thinking, namely, the pure consciousness which, latterly, Husserl regarded it as transcendental subject. Descartes didn't carry out his criticism to the end. Just as Descartes did, Husserl reduced the whole world to the pure consciousness. What is difference between Husserl and Descartes is that Descartes didn't differentiate presentation and presented. As for Husserl, presentation prepares the ground for something presented. Presentation and presented altogether in the mind constitute the activities of mind, which is named by consciousness phenomenology. Presentation looms large and is stressed by Husserl as the genetic principle of knowledge. However, following Descartes'suit, Husserl at last reduced the physical body to the transcendental subject. It was very pity for Husserl not to understand all the way what the pure form is, which he had long been looking for, as well as the relationship between body and mind/soul. It was fortunate and plausible that embodiment missed by Husserl was expressed clearly by Heidegger.Through Heidegger phenomenology took on a new look, which turned to reveal the invisible structure which was an inner ontology, and which appears in Dasein's survival style which can only be available by the method of description. Since Descartes, ontologies can only be derived form mind as a cognitive entity, which enlightened Husserl to establish his inner ontology from the pure form of consciousness. However, Heidegger challenged Husserl'argument that we were not the pure consciousness but as a living man to live his life and to experience his experiences. Thus, Heidegger turned the transcendental subject created by Husserl to be Desein or being there. Knowledge was not created by the pure consciousness but from being involved in the practical activities. As long as Dasein cares about his survival, Dasein is to know about. The being of Dasein is the inner ontology which appears Dasein knowing about, caring about, sick of, and death so on. The development of the invisible structure ontologically would establish Desein's phenomena of survival and construct its living world. Thus phenomenology is one that describes Desein's how to survive in the world and what to do his survival. The description of the mode and style of Desein's living in the world embody the invisible structure of Desein personally. So, we can say that it was through Heidegger who made phenomenology as a subject of phenomenology,which made the invisible structure appear. That was what the thought of embodiment is.But the problem is that by what means Desein experience his life? When we say that the development of being of Desein constitutes the style and mode of his experiencing the world, how can we understand being of Desein? What the inner and invisible structure ontologically is? And where does it come from? In other words, Desein in the transcendental sense should be more specific, be reduced to the body which was not regarded as a mechanic object but a living and knowing body. The pure form is not a pure consciousness, or transcendental Desein, but body's transcendental form. When we talk about the transcendental form of body, we don't intend to reduce body to that form, but to attribute that form to the phenomenological body. And the pure form is of the flesh, exactly. The flesh is sensible and sensed. We should not say that the flesh is nothing but a mass of meat, on the quite contrary, that the flesh has it own thought, history and the pure experience. To know about some objects is to make the body involve in them, which makes the body to sense, to experience. That means to know about is essentially to make the body to know, which makes what body has experienced sediment as a pure form in the flesh. Thus, when we say that body senses, we really means that it is our flesh senses, which is reflexive and reversible. That's what Merleau-Ponty's idea on embodiment. Not only knowledge is the form of our flesh, embodied, but also we sense by our flesh, so that we can say that the thing has its flesh. The gap between our body and the world, as we call it distance, is virtually the flesh of the world. To explain the possibility of embodiment necessarily turns to metaphysical thinking about how the embodied cognition can be possible. If so, the flesh would be endowed with the meaning of ontology. Merleau-Ponty traced the pure form of phenomenology of consciousness down to phenomenology of body, which made phenomenology naturalized. It is in such books as Eye and Soul, as well as The visible and invisible, that phenomenology, which has always been taking much pain to make the invisible structure appeared, presented itself as a phenomenology.