A Study Of The Merleau-Ponty' Theory Of Understanding

Understanding has attacted widespread attention in the history of modern western philosophy, Philosophers usually treat understanding as human being's conscious activity of getting knowledge from aspect of the relationship between subject and object. With development of modern western philosophy, the research on understanding has been widened and deepened. Understanding not only is regarded as people's cognitive ability in the theory of knowledge, but also as the existent manner of human being in the theory of ontology. In addition, the historicity of understanding, the relationships between understanding and interpretation, language, consciousness and so on also have more and more rich and varied interpretations. In this dissertation, I will interpret Merleau-Ponty's understanding of understanding from the angle of his body-philosophy at the same time base my interpretation on analyzing the other philosophers' theories of understanding in modern philosophy.Merleau-Ponty concerns the body itself which is treated as the unity of the existence and thinking by him. So far as to the relationship between subject and object, he has a vague attitude, and creates the concept of physical phenomena in order to solve the problem of the division between the subject and the object. Our body have already known something about the world and done some reaction to the world even before we have consciousness about the world.On the basis of body understanding, Merleau-Ponty has also discussed the relationships between the body understanding and the understanding of consciousness, language, and culture. In his theory, language and the body are very closely related. The understanding of language is an extension of the body understanding.Merleau-Ponty' philosophy is an ambiguous theory. His body philosophy opened up a new perspective for the modern western philosophy. His theory of understanding is so unique that it is worth for our in-depth study.