Philosophy 186

With growing interest in the role of the body in perception and consciousness, Merleau-Ponty’s classic work, Phenomenology of Perception, has become increasingly relevant. We will read the book in order to understand and evaluate Merleau-Ponty’s arguments against what he calls empiricism (a sort of behaviorism) and intellectualism (cognitivism), as well as his positive account of what he calls motor intentionality—a kind of intentionality without conceptuality that, Merleau-Ponty argues, is the basic way human beings are embedded in the world.