| dc.description.abstract | If there is a theme that spans though the entire philosophical trajectory of Merleau-Ponty
and which, both, places him in the interior of a tradition inaugurated by Descartes as well as in
radical opposition to this same tradition, that would be the theme of the relation between
consciousness and nature. It is the starting point for the investigation in The structure of
behaviour, it is also the theme of Phenomenology of Perception: in both texts it is treated in
terms of a inflection of the comprehension of experience and of perception, anchoring them in
the facticity of the body proper, explicating in perception and in experience a ground of
expression. The same theme is present in the post-Phenomenology writings, where now the
interrogation centers on the phenomena of expression and language. It is in this sense that we
propose here that The structure of behavior opens up to questions that will occupy the
philosopher’s entire course of his investigations, that this text does not get expired in view of
the movements that followed it, rather, that it gained in profundity, that if it already introduces
us to axial issues that will guide future researches, simultaneously, it becomes, as the work
progress, an aspect of the totality of the work, in the sense that we may now say that it
illuminates and is illuminated by the thought that succeeds it. Section one of this thesis
introduces the main theme of The Structure of Behavior, the question on the grounds of which
he builds his critique to substance philosophies: self-enclosed being, absolutely determined,
presupposition common to both, empiricism and intellectualism, a preconcept that at the same
time will not allow them to recognize the common ground of their theories and will enclose
both in the positive and objective. Section 2 presents his critique, via an analysis of the theory
of reflex, of a Cartesianism. His critique, nonetheless, we show, is not meant solely to destroy
a tradition, in fact, Merleau-Ponty builds a sort of critique that aims at the restauration of a
Descartes that can still deliver new and pressing questions. We attempted to show that the
notion of the unthought, which will appear in its full force in last writings, is already present in
this first book. In sections 3 and 4 we expound his critique to Gestalttheory and to Behaviorism
which, simultaneously, points out their insufficiency, for they’re never able to detach
themselves from substance theories, as well as to what they have of originary, that is, the notions
of behavior and form. By the appropriation and radicalization of these notions, the relations
between consciousness and world (or between animal and its milieu) appear ambiguous,
indicating the necessity of a thinking of ambiguity and the incompleteness. In the last section,
we bring a reflection on how the themes addressed in the previous sections reverberate in the
whole of the writings of Merleau-Ponty, even in his movement more explicit to a philosophy
as writing (écriture), writing which is simultaneously convocated by silence and involved in
silence. If we propose, therefore, that The Structure of Behaviour has a sense that extends
beyond the work itself, this is because the ambiguous aspect of our coping with the world,
incompleteness, the silence of the perceived world, and the comprehension of perception of as
already involved by expression, themes introduced in this inaugural text, are present and govern
central aspects of his philosophical path. | |
