| From its initial appearance in the Phenomenologie de la perception, to its characterization in Signes and La Prose du monde as well as other writings during the same period, and finally to its role in Le Visible et l'invisible, the present work demonstrates how the intertwining of language and silence is a theme that grows in importance in Maurice Merleau-Ponty's philosophy and argues that it is a key to understanding the unity of his thinking as well as the shifts in perspective that occur in its development between the Phenomenologie de la perception and Le Visible et l'invisible.;The silence in question is not at all characterized negatively as a lack, it does not refer to the mere absence of words or sounds; rather, it is of an entirely different nature. In the present work I endeavour to disclose and discuss various meanings of this silence as well as the sense in which silence is intimately and inextricably interwoven with language. Since the theme is worked out most clearly for the first time in the period following the publication of the Phenomenologie de la perception in 1945, it is therefore on the works of this period that I concentrate.;Since during this time Merleau-Ponty was influenced enormously by Ferdinand de Saussure's structural linguistics, I show precisely how language is understood as indirect rather than direct, and discuss how silence arises from a highly structured, somewhat autonomous linguistic system.;As influential as this structuralist model of language may be, I further demonstrate how crucial a phenomenological understanding of silence remains to Merleau-Ponty. I raise questions over the traditional phenomenological understanding of the original silence of our lived experience, arguing that the notion implies the relative absence of real meaning in existence and, furthermore, that the act of the creative use of language is essentially a form of existential self-making.;In order to synthesize my conclusions and formulate a (Merleau-Pontyean) conception of the speaking subject I provide the poststructuralist conception of the speaking subject as a foil, showing how a Merleau-Pontyean conception is more consistent. |
