| This dissertation develops an aesthetic phenomenological method describing perception through the insights and techniques of artists. It concludes by recommending that a reorientation of phenomenology to a study of contemporary artists provides a philosophical alternative to structural, linguistic approaches of later twentieth century French thought, while advancing the broader phenomenological project of grounding the sciences.;The argument begins by outlining the broad phenomenological project developed by Edmund Husserl from the phenomenological reduction to his analyses of passive synthesis, emphasizing the transcendental character of phenomenology and the project of grounding science in a transcendental aesthetic.;It is then shown that Merleau-Ponty continues Husserl's project in terms of aesthesis, the perceptual, bodily experience of space and time. The reduction for Merleau-Ponty, rather than simply descriptive of the given, becomes active and transformative due to his unique attention to artists on topics concerning depth, the dimensionality of being, corporeal schema, flesh and expression. An account of the neglected kinaesthetic process of establishing bearings provides a transition into the closer study of Merleau-Ponty's aesthetics.;Merleau-Ponty's recommendation that art is a "central operation contributing to our access of being" is developed to describe what it means to think in painting, or in any art---when vision becomes gesture. This is a matter of the artist finding the guiding motif of a work, testing ideas and modifying them according to how the medium responds. Rather than a prosaic or literal description of perception this account continues the motivating and generating axis about which something becomes visible.;This leads to a close study of Merleau-Ponty's unique use of artists, including Paul Claudel, Paul Cezanne, Henri Matisse and Auguste Renoir. These examples provide general artistic techniques as extensions of the body establishing its bearings. Rather than a phenomenological reduction to consciousness these are examples of tormenting, distending, deflagrating, mixing up, gouging and breaking the skin of things.;In conclusion, an aesthetic phenomenology provides grounding for the sciences through a transcendental aesthetic. This requires turning to recent and contemporary artists whose work can be seen as contributing to phenomenological descriptions of perception today. |
