Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception

Professor Ellie Anderson, co-host of Overthink philosophy podcast, introduces Maurice Merleau-Ponty's approach to phenomenology and key concepts from it, including the lived body, direct description of experience, oriented space vs. objective space, and the primacy of perception. To learn more, read Merleau-Ponty's 1945 classic The Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Donald A. Landes.
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[@olivierelbougnadere4117]

This is litterally embodied cognition. This man predicted the neurosciences discoveries of the last 3 decades !

[@gooosedog]

The “L” word in this comment has not only tainted a fine statement, but also reveals the lack of consciousness of the commenter, sadly.

[@angelozachos8777]

@@gooosedog Ouch 😣 You must be REALLY fun after a few drinks 🍺

[@gooosedog]

@@angelozachos8777 Haha! I don’t drink. Just trying to deprogram the mindless habit of an overused word one person at a time.

[@michaelseanderry]

@@gooosedogI think you meant conscientiousness, not consciousness.

[@gooosedog]

@@michaelseanderry If the “L” word were considered profane, than yes, conscientiousness would be adequate. But what I am referring to is sheep mentality.

[@ninanoble8252]

This is the best introduction to Phenomenology of Perception on the KZbin! I've watched so many on Merleau-Pontry and this video surpasses them all!

[@autizmunleashed]

This channel is freaking amazing. I'm just on my second video in and I love it to death haha

[@juliat1796]

You should have at least 100K of subscribers. What you are doing here is exceptional, please never stop!

[@gulgutz90]

I am sure you meant at least 1 million.

[@Nukiev]

100k has been reached :)

[@robertmayfield8746]

Yes, it's good to see philosophy being part of popculture, in a good way. Not as forgotten and isolated discipline.

[@theodoreugwa2264]

Exactly 💯❤

[@Dwchidwchi]

This is a remarkably clear, articulate and insightful presentation. I enjoyed it very much.

[@davidbollert1981]

Thanks!

[@SingularityasSublimity]

This is such an exceptional and clear presentation of these complex ideas. Thank you!

[@StoBird]

Merleau-Ponty! My favorite electric jazz violinist of the 1970s!

[@johnriley9357]

I like listening to you. I don’t always understand but it’s a start. I do have one problem. You have Clarice Lispector’s collected stories on the shelf behind you and I love them so much I start drifting away thinking of “The Smallest Woman in the World” and other stories. I find it refreshing to know you read her stories. Thanks for helping me understand so much.

[@MakeMePotatos]

Good catch! I noticed it only after reading your comment. Great book, great author and of course this video is amazing as well :)

[@AndyMorrisArt]

You just fucked my mind up. I had to share this with the only philosophy professor I know. I await her comments. Thank you for giving me something above mundane to think about.

[@SirEdwardRoss]

"Investigate existence on it's own terms". Existence has it's own terms? Indeed. Existence is dependent on terms. Existence is terms. I love you Ellie!

[@francescos7361]

Thanks for your patience , and your contribution.

[@taylorvanamburgh4840]

MY NEW FAVORITE CHANNEL. Thank you.

[@artlessons1]

Thanks . Phenomenology is certainly a legit concept that unfortunately is often overlooked by the average reader . I have a friend who is focused on it for her PhD in psychology . Thanks again for your usual articulate presentation of complex subjects in a short time !

[@verova]

I love the way you clearly explain and illustrate. Thanks!

[@omdaut]

Thank you, it took me years to grasp what u elaborated in few mins.

[@OverthinkPodcastPhilosophy]

Don't worry, it took Dr. Anderson years, too (hence the Ph.D.)! Our hope is that this will help those getting into this study orient themselves, and we're glad you found it helpful in light of all the work you've done so far

[@Healinghonies]

What a remarkable breakdown

[@chggg567]

I'm the FIRST COMMENTOR!! Great philosophy from Ponty! Well expounded by Ellie! This world doesn't exist without living beings... We are the ones who give essence to the world.

[@berniv7375]

Do you perceive the other animals as living beings worthy of moral consideration?

[@chggg567]

​@berniv7375 yes I do, eg a "good" tiger might hesitate to kill more than it needs. But anyway, Ponty main point is consciousness due to life, so I think even a germ creates consciousness around it just by being around, no matter how minuscule it is. Morality shouldn't be the key issue in this context, consciousness is.

[@anonymoushuman8344]

Thanks so much for making all of this philosophical clarity and understanding of influential thinkers available to everybody and for free, liberated from the confines of the academy! You enrich humanity rather than just students and academics.

[@Aratto]

The way you teach is unique, you have my complete admiration! Thanks for the knowledge

[@tommcmahon3200]

Thanks for the refresher! Was introduced to Merleau-Ponty through a uni elective and Phenomenology made instant sense to me. His radically straight-forward take was also very inspiring as a 20 something struggling how to make sense of the mumbo jumbo sea of consciousness studies. Kudos Maurice for being relevant almost 80 years later!

[@ChrisParkin76]

Hi Dr. Anderson. Love this, aligned with my current understandings that challenge my assumption that the mind knows the world but rather my body expresses itself as mind / conceptual thought. Reminds me of Eugene Gendlen and focusing/ felt sense knowing. Thank you for these!

[@scottlangdonproject]

Terrific video! Thank you for making these!

[@reminraihankhan5933]

Such an effusive speaker. Beautiful

[@coreydinardo5525]

I just came across your channel and subscribed on Spotify. This is great! Merleau-Ponty seems underrated as a philosopher, but I really love his thoughts on an embodied philosophy.

[@escape_world]

Such an awesome channel - wow! I really appreciate the drive to showcase philosophical ideas in a more digestible format!😄🙌🏼

[@PoolofBethesda88]

Understanding phenomenology is SO key to writing a powerful novel. Very important.

[@samuelgass6261]

Very interesting to see the connections between Pont y’a phenomenology, John Dewey’s theory of experience, and current work in Active Inference, Active Externalism, and 4E cognition. Philosophy is love, philosophy is life.

[@draw4everyone]

YES!!!

[@nekaylasmith]

Im glad David Abram's The Spell of the Sensous brought me here. Merleau Ponty's teachings (only what I have read) has changed my view of places , interactions, and people.

[@OverthinkPodcastPhilosophy]

If you're into Abram, you might enjoy the podcast episode where we discuss that book! www.overthinkpodcast.com/episodes/episode-33

[@michaelprenez-isbell8672]

I am loving your bite sized bits philosophers. I spent my thirties watching Michael Sugrue and Darren Staloff on VHS.

[@scottb.8514]

Besides the content I was initially impressed by this speakers succinct and rapid dissemination of Ponty’s ideas. Then I realized I was playing her at 2x. I like her but really I like her as 2x a faster version of who she appears to be😊

[@morgash1984]

Omg this makes so much sense and you made this so accessible and interesting... Thank you

[@jking2197]

I greatly value her explanation because it will be helpful to me in writing my philosophical paper on Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy of Perception. I believe that anyone can learn because of the straightforward approach in which she presents it; in fact, I am one of those people. Thank ou so much.

[@shahabzafarmehrabian9430]

Three minutes in and I am hooked Great video

[@robertoa.m.3984]

You are such a wonderful teacher Ellie....the level and clarity of your exposition is wonderful 👍😊🌹...I hope someday to experience you personally.....

[@musiqtee]

Great! 👍 One thought though…; Allo- vs egocentric regarding geographical space, and communication (explicitly). If my wife is telling me about say, a new shop, she’ll try to convey its location in an egocentric way. I.e. her perception of where it is located relative to another shop, a distinct green house or a huge tree nearby. Being who I am (and I love my wife to bits) I don’t ever seem to understand her directions - even after 17 years… The allocentric AND in this case objective and “boring” solution is an address and a map, paper or Google’s. THEN I get it immediately. Fun fact, in reverse she is very puzzled if I show her a map telling her about… well, a new shop. To me it seems that her perception focuses around the experience she had visiting the shop, whereas I focus on where it’s located, and an objective way of sharing just that. My own experience of the shop is just mine, and I can’t really expect even my wife to share everything about it. At the same time, my attitude opens up to her not having to carry my bias into her experience. So, in communication, objectivity has its place, I think…

[@envaleorex7361]

I've been a huge fan of MP for decades. This is a good, brief, introduction to his ideas. You might mention, however, that at the end of his life (1961) he was working on a radically new conceptualization which he called "the flesh". He only wrote the beginning of thebook before he died, which is really unfortunate for us. I think that if he had lived and finished it he would have eclipsed Heidegger in his influence. As it stands, he's still extremely important, probably the purest furtherance of Husserl's ideas in in ideas 1 and 2.

[@Spiritchaser93]

His Visible and the Invisible is like Heidegger's Turn, just without the mysticism and poetry that Heidegger became towards the later stages of his thinking. If you want to know what MP was getting at, read Deleuze's The Logic of Sense. In it, the same concepts are reorientated but the key characteristics remain - that reversible and asymmetrical aspects of Flesh/Sense.

[@orthostice]

This is a great introduction, thank you!

[@diegorojas69]

Congratulations! Your channel is amazing. Please talk about Mark Fisher's "Capitalist realism". Great work!

[@Undressful]

I tried so hard to understand phenomenology in a simple way and here it is... Really good explanation by a very beautiful and cool person, as you seem. Keep the good work!

[@Marzaries]

Interesting, Ponty's take on space reminds me of how space is described in the Dao De Jing, a text over 2000 years old!

[@ShamanBuddhaDread]

Great summary. Thank you.

[@moodyangel]

you have worded it all so beautifully. thank you.

[@JesusPeopleSF]

I know this is far left of field from your summary of the book, but this relates heavily to some esoteric statements in Paul's Epistles about embodiment and the importance of the body, the need for it even after death (resurrection). Your summary helped me think through a few of those statements, thanks so much.

[@Sophthesoul]

Thank you for this video🙏🏽🙏🏽Starting 4th year uni philosophy in September and trying to get familiar with these concepts

[@NousSpeak]

She's super clear at explaining all of this, which is usually obscured a bit behind opaque (but not necessarily unnecessary) jargon. I wish she had a lecture series that got webcast somewhere, like Sapolsky's great Stanford series on Neurobiology.

[@erumkhan6296]

Beautifully presented

[@patinho5589]

I just want to say you are wonderful. I perceive that very easily!!

[@lakshmiaysola9617]

this saved my life (this week anyway) Thank you!!! just awesome

[@DavidRose-m8s]

Thanks for the great content. Overthink for me is being dogged, and not letting go of my ADHD perhaps not quite motility. Operating outside of the common narrative familial bubbles of this world can let us see at least part way into the dimensions of water, air, soil, space and life. People remains a work in progress, but this helps me fill in another part of the puzzle.

[@nayibabdalaripoll8497]

A clear and correct treatment of the ground of perception.

[@DorShilton]

Thank you for bringing these ideas to this often mind-numbing platform!

[@williamkraemer8338]

Another grand slam by Prof. Ellie !!

[@nietzchesghost]

Thanks for the summary. Getting back into phenomenology now.

[@domenictersigni999]

Thanks fellow being for sharing awareness and insights out loud with us

[@Phaedrus88]

One of your best videos. Love Ponty, thank you!

[@autizmunleashed]

Second video watched, after the burnout society. I'm so glad I found this channel.

[@DanielDiaz-qw6ou]

She must really know the material if she can explain it so easily, nice!

[@MicahBenally]

Man, I i remember hearing about Husserl from Sartre in "Being and Nothingness". This fills in some holes. Thank you prof!

[@wonderfacts7782]

It's so good! But I wish it could be little more elaborative with more examples. Anyway, thank you so much for bringing us these ideas for us.

[@KenishaCable]

Very helpful! Thank you👍🏽😊

[@jpruhu7662]

Will need to consider his work carefully. Ty for the introduction!

[@Me_ThatsWho]

Great lecture on a great podcast. Immediately subscribed ! From one prof to another, nice job !

[@kazz970]

Merleau-Ponty curb-stomps Descartes.

[@WTH747]

This is a strong show. Perhaps one of my preferred philosophers also. Of coarse, they all add something to the brew.

[@simeongoa]

Wonderful synopsis! Thank you for making this. (Also love seeing that you have Sources of The Self on your shelf).

[@chaitanyakirti2335]

Respect Mam. Great Explaination.

[@ZooDinghy]

This is exceptionally great content! Thank you!

[@johanmiranda21]

thank you

[@elenamawyer7887]

I am on a binge watch of philosophy videos!

[@csabaimate]

This was recommended to me after I watched a video of Pearl Davis, an anti-feminist (ironically a girl) who thinks women shouldn't even have the right to vote. Don't look her up. My point is it would be paradise on Earth if we cherished people who actually know something and wish to educate like you. Keep on and thank you for this mini lecture! 💚

[@tavitsmith1284]

Superb introduction! Thank you.

[@p4csona]

As a first year Philosophy student, who's writing her final written exam about the Phenomenology of Perception - this just saved my life. It's explained so well.

[@markcraigoguing7645]

Thanks for the clear discussion.

[@martinleduc3210]

Super nice presentation, thanks/ M

[@artemisXsidecross]

Thank you this was an excellent presentation ☮

[@sarwaazeez1369]

I love watching your videos.. thanks for introducing us to these theories ❤

[@manoletemora5267]

Excellent introduction!

[@doylesaylor]

Abstraction is a question of the realism of the structure of say seeing the world landscape. So for example writing (scripts) can’t reproduce connectivity, but seeing can’t reproduce outside the layering of the retina. So much of the struggle of phenomenology of knowing is the realism of ‘layered’ connectivity. Idealism is a reference to the interiority of knowledge content inside a neural network and the challenges of connecting that to the outside. This is saying that language performance is a realism stream that flows between people. This is sort of acknowledged in computing as - ‘Explainable Artificial Intelligence’ -. Some abstract idea say for example a generic object, or ‘Thing’ needs to be linked (explained) from one person to the next. This is a realism flow and is about object/thingness realism, but language connects things, which is a generalization or connectivism of the whole of things as a flow through the body in a life world.

[@claudioc.ramirez550]

Quite nice summary of Merleau-Ponty thinking. Thanks !!..That make me understand more his ideas. That ideas remind me what is found in the book “The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience” by Eleanor Rosch, Evan Thompson and Francisco Varela. Hope this can be included in this place.

[@scoon2117]

Youre a great speaker with great recall!

[@llaneloc]

What about the "time and space are doomed" proponents? I am a dancer. I cannot speak for all dancers but much of this discussion can be held non-verbally in a channel I discovered at a young age while in a sort of trance state while my limbs moved through no thought of my own but the memory in my muscles in synchronization to resonance and a sudden unrehearsed uncalculated LOSS OF EGO where my perception of time and space suddenly disappeared to be replaced by a spectacular 3 dimensional suspension of light and sound around and inside me lasting an amount of time that can't be measured because time and space disappeared as I fell within what they call the Mind-Body Gap No intoxicants other than coffee This "drop flow" consciousness tangent has since occurred on several other occasions while DRUMMING and I am convinced this simple meditative exercise is what got religions off the ground because I can tell you as someone who has lived a life they count as my three most meaningful experiences and they came from WITHIN thanks for you bright cheery style

[@JoseMorales-cx3pw]

Excellent!

[@denalozecon9074]

"I think therefore I Am" "My Body Can Act therefore I Live" My reaction to the I think vs I Can distinction. I have not heard of Merleau and his description of why the idea "I Can" is an important way to view our Mind/Body.

[@tinfoilhatscholar]

Excellent presentation. Thank you for sharing

[@allakavivek]

Thank you so much, wanted to read this.. Thank you, thanks youtube for reminding

[@theodoreugwa2264]

You killed it ❤❤ You are a genius

[@MarkCanter]

Thank you for this excellent overview of phenomenology. Along with its younger sibling, embodied cognition, I consider it "Western Zen."

[@syedaleemuddin6804]

Nice presentation. I mostly agree with him, I think he was opposed to people who exaggerated or over reported philosophy or made unrealistic claims.

[@sebastianbustamante4853]

this is very well done

[@abyzzwalker]

Thank you for the video, great explanation.

[@wearewon]

Some profundities clearly and efficiently, even elegantly, delivered. Are these KZbin talks the same audio on the audio only podcasts?

[@OverthinkPodcastPhilosophy]

Thanks! No, the audio podcast is a co-hosted conversational podcast of 45-55 minutes per episode, where we do deeper dives into particular topics and discuss what philosophers have to say about said topic, including debating their views. We have an upcoming episode on Touch that discusses Merleau-Ponty's views of the topic, as well as Aristotle's, Husserl's, and others'!

[@harisubramanian4165]

I love you❤ Madame professor !

[@potatoactualising]

This is class, thank you.

[@0ChikitaBananas0]

excellent

[@alexhoffmanjazz]

Don’t care for Merleau-Ponty or Phenomenology but your explanation is superb.

[@BreezeTalk]

THANK YOU

[@HugoCortizo]

This just showed up on my feed less than 24 hours after the books title caught my eye as I saw it in an episode of the BBC adaptation of 'The City and The City'. Eerie.

[@came_leon]

Anybody else is also looking at Prof. Anderson bookshelves and picking up titles? I went for Actors on Acting and Ugly Feelings so far.

[@theodoreugwa2264]

Thanks

[@zchryrly]

Sources of the self on the shelf and a discussion of MMP... well, I think I like where this is headed.

[@friedux2065]

Great explainer, subscribed!