On Merleau-Ponty’s Dialectic Of History

As one of the French intellectuals in20th century, Maurice Merleau-Pontythought deeply about the history and politics. His core theory of history and politicswas dialectic of history.Merleau-Ponty’s unique understanding of the dialectic of history was impactedby the other theories and political events. This essay exactly focuses on this type ofmentality.This thesis first discusses the various theoretical inspirations of Merleau-Ponty’sdialectic of history, focusing on his creative interpretation of Hegel and Marx’stheories and his insight on Phenomenology. Then the thesis proceeds to elaborate thecharacteristics of his dialectics and his criticism of other philosophies forunderstanding the uniqueness of his ideas. After that, the thesis analyses the impact ofreality of politics, try to understand how Merleau-Ponty practiced his idea. And at last,the thesis inspects the theoretical value and destiny of dialectic of history.The conclusion of this thesis is：Merleau-Ponty’s thought of politics and historyis highly abstract, which is reflected in his understanding of dialectic of history. Hethought that history is directional and meaningful, but not teleological and fatalistic.The meaning of politics and history need to be constantly expounded from differentperspectives, for driving force of the dialectic of history lies in the man whoconstantly transcending themselves. In Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, the man iskind of ambiguous existence. So the history and politics that humans created shouldbe comprehended by a dialectical attitude, which really absorbs the spirit of dialecticof history..