Understanding The Perceptional Phenomenology On The Basis Of Merleau-Ponty's Bodily Sapce

This paper mainly talks about Merleau-Ponty's body-based theory of space. As well known, space is always a important concept in philosophical discussion, many philosophers have talked it in different periods, pushing the development of space concept forward, and these discussions have influenced the theory of space in physics. Merleau-Ponty, as an original philosopher, thought that there existed some problems in the traditional discussion about space. He thought that the traditional way considered the space as a feature of outside world in the form of empiricism, or considered it as a constructive ability of human in the form of intellectualism. Both of them deal with the space by "vitrification" in the way of objective reflection, space is abstracted as the objective geometry space. In this way, space loses its depth or massiness.On the basis of the conception of body, Merleau-Ponty talked about the meaning behind the space. He thought bodily space is the situation of body which can not be separated from body, and bodily space is not the object of objective cognition. Bodily space has double meaning:bodily space as the outside form of body, body's change of place or activity need to be shown by its space or outside form, so this is the subjective meaning; if the emphasis is the outside form of body,it has the objective meaning for the other subjects.For space, he thought"space is not the setting (real or logical) in which things are arranged, but whereby the position of things becomes possible."Space is not the meaning of objective entity, in other words,it's not the relationship between container and contents; and the relationship between space and the objects is not the logical implication as well. Meanwhile, space has a meaning of existentialism,space reflect that there is one contact between body and world in the sense of life. In Merleau-Ponty's philosophy, world has an original direction, this original direction existed before cognition. The contact between body and world is earlier than mind's analysis and reflection to the space. The perceived objects and perceptual subject constitute a phenomenology field. The phenomenology field has no distinction between subject and object," we can not apply the traditional distinction between form and material to perception"By analyzing Merleau-Ponty's conception of space, we can find that he excavated a new meaning of the conception of space by using the method which phenomenology discusses problems.