An Inquiry Into The Temporality Of Merleau-Ponty

The temporality has been one of the core issues of phenomenology, this article gets points from the French phenomenologist Merleau-Ponty’s early 《Phenomenology of Perception》 and later 《The Visible and The Invisible》, in order to discuss the transition of temporality from the early to the later. In the 《Phenomenology of Perception》, he learned from Husserl’s theory of internal time-consciousness which infrastructure was "Retention-Urimpression-Protention" and put forward a subjectivity and body-related of time through interaction with the world. This subjectivity time continues the feature of "continuity" that Husserl’s internal time-consciousness stresses, aiming at achieving integration with the internal time-consciousness and the external world. By the later stage of his thought, Merleau-Ponty gradually realized that the thought of temporality in 《3Phenomenology of Perception》 contained too much meaning of "Philosophy of Consciousness", so his thought of temporality began to turn. This is particularly reflected in its unfinished 《The visible and The invisible》, he proposed "Ontology time" by analyzing the contents and features of the concept of "flesh", achieving the transition of temporality from subjectivity to ontology. Through analyzing the phenomenon of "Forgetting" occurring in the memory and the "Hands touching", he noted that the time is not a continuous process which integrates the internal consciousness with the external field, but a discontinuous time that having a "fissure" and "gap", this "discontinuity" is the authentic way of being. This temporality has a significant difference compared with that in 《Phenomenology of Perception》,because it derives from the perspective of ontology and the time seen as a order of the universe. Finally, through reflecting the relationship of temporality thought between Merleau-Ponty and Husserl, Heidegger, I believe that his researching approach of temporality from the early to the later is taking the middle road between Husserl and Heidegger.