Structure And Integration

This thesis is mainly concerned with the important body-mind problem in Merleau-Ponty's work STRUCTURE OF BEHAVIOR.It analyzes his entry point and primary attitude to the body-mind problem and keeps track of Merleau-Ponty's criticism of traditional views on it.For Merleau-Ponty,traditional philosophy,modern science or critical philosophy,are all confined by the mode of thinking of objective cause and effect and insist on the truthfulness of body-mind entity dualism.The task of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy is to transcend the limit of objective mode of thinking and rediscover the primary being in the world of human beings.Merleau-Ponty makes a critical investigation on the objective mode of thinking and points out that “behavior” can not be simply treated as either bodily behavior or behavior of the mind.It should be understood against a specific background,by returning to structure of integration.As the two sides of the integration,body and mind express their full value as in a whole.The thesis elucidates three important aspects of the body-mind integration—bodily intentionality,body schema,and the expression of relationship.Merleau-Ponty also makes it clear that we need to understand the difference between body and mind as a kind of relative dualism.Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of body-mind problem attach importance to the originary connection between human and world.It converts phenomenology to phenomenology of the body.The study of Merleau-Ponty's view on body-mind problem enables us to examine human activities in views of the relation between phenomenon and essence,subject and object,and part and whole.Moreover,Merleau-Ponty's theory plays an important role for theoretical innovation of body-mind problem.