Esta tesis busca establecer un diálogo entre la propuesta filosófica de Maurice Merleau- Ponty y la obra 4’33” de John Cage con el fin de responder a la siguiente pregunta: ¿de qué modo la reversibilidad a la que apunta el filósofo en sus escritos tardíos tiene lugar en el arte musical y en la escucha profunda que la obra 4’33” propone? Sostenemos que el concepto de reversibilidad que ofrece la ontología de Merleau-Ponty se hace presente en el sistema de la escucha y se expresa de manera radical en esta pieza. Para ello, exploramos cómo 4’33” nos invita a experimentar la reversibilidad en múltiples relaciones de entrelazo e intercambio que se dan en la escucha y los distintos tipos de silencio que cada una de estas presenta. Este recorrido nos aproxima a lo que llamamos el silencio de “lo profundo”, la dimensión originaria de nuestra vida perceptiva donde se tiene experiencia del Ser.

La presente tesis busca, a partir de un análisis fenomenológico de la primera infancia, explicar la génesis del individuo humano en el pensamiento de Merleau-Ponty. Sostenemos que el individuo se origina a partir de la organización de los movimientos que realiza su cuerpo, oscilando entre el anonimato brindado por el mundo natural y el anonimato del mundo cultural, sin los cuales no podría existir. Analizaremos cómo se va instituyendo esta “oscilación” del cuerpo en el recién nacido y le va dando un estilo particular de relacionarse con el mundo, pero que solo puede darse si entendemos la génesis de la individualidad como una relación intersubjetiva. Para ello, hemos dividido la tesis en tres capítulos. En el primero describimos cómo Merleau-Ponty sitúa al cuerpo como ser al mundo proponiendo, a través de los movimientos que son estimulados por la madre, que el niño vaya adquiriendo su propia manera de relacionarse con las cosas y consigo mismo. En el segundo capítulo analizamos la adquisición del lenguaje a través de los movimientos propiciados por el cuerpo del niño en el proceso de separación madre-hijo, y que van creando gestos y palabras de diferentes grados de complejidad. En el tercer capítulo, analizamos la dialéctica entre lo sedimentado y lo instituyente, dentro del contexto de la reflexión del fenomenólogo sobre la historicidad y su vinculación con la naturaleza en la que retoma ideas planteadas por el materialismo histórico. Estos tres capítulos han sido planteados como ejes (cuerpo, expresión, historicidad) de una reflexión sobre la génesis del individuo descrita en la etapa infantil y puesta bajo la noción de Fundierung

Between his first philosophical works and his last, Jean-Paul Sartre radically changed his philosophical outlook. The reasons for this change can be found in European history and Sartre's detailed study of twentieth-century protest movements. Between the end of the Second World War and the 1960s, French intellectuals began an intensive period of introspection, examining the complex relationship between History and social justice. Sartre and the group of intellectuals associated with him combined to fight against Stalinism while searching for a new theory of political action. This thesis discusses the abrupt termination of the ethical project that Sartre proposed to base on his original phenomenological examinations, and discusses his and Simone de Beauvoir's first attempts to construct an Existentialist ethic. Sartre changed from being an Existentialist to a Marxist to finally, late in life, abandoning Marxism in favour of a never well-defined philosophy. But in the Critique of Dialectical Reason, the last of his serious philosophical works, he responded to his ex-friends's critiques in the light of his study of Eastern European history, particularly, the Revolution in Hungary. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Thesis (MPhil (Philosophy))--University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / This study seeks to give a philosophical account of, and justification for the intuition that subjectivity is not a stable “Archimedean point” on the basis of which an intersubjective relation can be founded, but is instead profoundly affected by each different “Other” with which it enters into a relation. As a preliminary to the positive philosophical account of how this might work in Part II of the thesis, there is an attempt to critique certain of the classical accounts of intersubjectivity found in phenomenology, in order to show that these positions cannot give a satisfactory account of the type of intersubjective relation which gives rise to the abovementioned intuition. The thesis therefore starts off by examining the account of intersubjectivity in Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations (especially the Fifth Meditation). Husserl is there engaged in an attempt to overcome the charge of solipsism that might be levelled at phenomenology, since phenomenology is concerned with experience as, by definition, the experience of the subject. We try to show that Husserl cannot give a satisfactory account of the Other because he tries to derive it from the Subject, and hence reduces the Other to the Same. We then turn to two other phenomenological thinkers – Merleau-Ponty and Levinas, both of whom are themselves critical of Husserl – to examine whether they provide a better account, but conclude that (although each represents a certain advance over Husserl), neither are able to provide a decisively better account, since each is still too caught up in phenomenology and its focus on consciousness. In Part II of the thesis, we then turn to a non- (or even anti-) phenomenological thinker, namely Gilles Deleuze, to try and find an alternative theory that would be able to provide the account we seek. Our contention is that Deleuze, by seeking to give an account of the constitution of the subject itself, simultaneously provides an account of the constitution of the Other as arising at the same time as the Subject. Crucial to this account is the inversion of priority between the poles of a relation and the relation itself. Deleuze argues that a relation is “external to its terms”, and precedes these terms. Hence, by returning to a level which precedes consciousness and the order of knowledge – that is, by returning to the level of the virtual multiplicities and singular events that underlie and precede the actualization of these events and multiplicities in distinct subjects and objects – we argue that Deleuze shows that, contra phenomenology, there is in fact no primordial separation between subject and Other. The contention is therefore that the problem of intersubjectivity as posed by phenomenology is a false one that can be eluded by means of Deleuze’s philosophy. This philosophy is not based on the subject, but instead shows the subject to be the product of an underlying network of relations. Finally, we turn to Deleuze’s appropriation of Nietzsche to trace out the transformation of “ethics” that result from adopting a position like that of Deleuze.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T20:39:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dirceu Antonio Scali Junior.pdf: 687751 bytes, checksum: f4197ea681f134a8c83cbee4c542a559 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-09-24 / The intention of this work is to look for to understand the relation author-workmanship from what if it could call originary creative gesture. For in such a way, it was initially looked to decide some questions concerning the relation personage and biography and, later, was carried through a biography of the mining writer João Guimarães Rosa, having tried to apprehend genesis of the phenomenon of the creation. To establish this analysis, some concepts developed for the French philosopher had been essential Maurice Merleau-Ponty, mainly the ones that in some way they send to the study of the work of art, as well as the referring questions to the research of this author on the language / A intenção desse trabalho é procurar entender a relação autor-obra a partir do que se poderia chamar de gesto criativo originário. Para tanto, procurou-se inicialmente resolver algumas questões acerca da relação personagem e biografia e, posteriormente, foi realizada uma biografia do escritor mineiro João Guimarães Rosa, tentando apreender a gênese do fenômeno da criação. Para estabelecer essa análise, foram essenciais alguns conceitos desenvolvidos pelo filósofo francês Maurice Merleau-Ponty, principalmente os que de alguma maneira remetem ao estudo da obra de arte, bem como às questões referentes à pesquisa desse autor sobre a linguagem

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:25:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2005Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T18:53:31Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 vezali_pa_me_mar.pdf: 321938 bytes, checksum: fd99255e23e874cb8e1184e94615ccff (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Nesta dissertação nós mostraremos, pela contribuição da filosofia de Merleau-Ponty, focalizando o conceito de expressão e os processos de referenciação, que as relações entre linguagem, corpo e mundo da vida são formadoras do simbolismo e da significação. Em acréscimo, examinaremos alguns desenvolvimentos recentes das vertentes lingüísticas de uma perspectiva sócio-cognitiva da linguagem, refletindo sobre as conseqüências da afirmação da união senciente-sensível para a ontologia clássica da mente e da linguagem, como também para a teoria corrente do conhecimento e dos debates epistemológicos sobre a negação dos dualismos interno-externo, sujeito-objeto e mente-corpo. / In this dissertation we will show, through contribution of the philosophy Merleau-Ponty, focusing the conception of expression and the referention processes, however relations between language, body and life's world is formed the simbolism and the signification. In addition, we will examine some recent developments from the linguistics siope of a social-cognitive view of the language, reflecting upon the consequences of this assert of the unite perceive-perceptible to the classic ontogeny of mind and language, as well as to current theory of knowledge and espistemological debates about negation of the dualisms internal-external, subject-object, mind-body.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-10T18:26:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Patricia Schneider.pdf: 1075652 bytes, checksum: c18124b11bffe8ae5493c5e0f9f7557f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-12-02 / The objective of this study is to analyze the conception of body and sexuality in a phenomenological-psychoanalytical perspective, and, from this reconstruction, to understand the notion of carnal unconscious in Merleau-Ponty, a notion that is being established from an articulation with the psychoanalytical theory. For this, the work has as an investigative base the first part of Phenomenology of Perception of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, capital text where it is explored the theme of the experience of the own body and its critical counterpoint to the traditional theories current in modern science and metaphysics. The Cartesian doctrine of the body is founded on the premise that the thought is prior to the perception, that is, the spirit has metaphysical and cognitive primacy over the body. The body is characterized for exercising a purely instrumental function in relation to the soul. Empiricism, however, bases the knowledge on sensory experience at which the body is defined as a piece of matter, an object of study of anatomy. However, Merleau-Ponty identifies, on these two canonical positions (intellectualism and empiricism), a convergence of base: a dualistic principle of conception, which camouflages the most characteristic experience of perceived phenomena, among them, the experience of the own body - dualism that splits our internal and external experience, spiritual and corporal. Thus, the tradition ends up masking the true experience of the body in such a way that the sexuality is only an instinct, an isolated physiological process, a predetermined mechanism. For the philosophical or even scientific tradition, the affection becomes an irrelevant issue, without receiving any ontological status more prominent. Differently, shows Merleau-Ponty, Freud has been the one that will launch new theoretical foundations in sense of rethinking more radically the experience of sexuality, considering the fact that everything that humans do has one or more sense or meaning. Thus, sexuality is not just an isolated physiological process, since the own man is understood as a cultural and historical being, a sense producer being, because the body reveals itself, in its latest radicalism, as a "sexual being". Without ever reducing itself to the object condition, the body becomes a source of meaning. It is a living experience. Sexuality becomes, therefore, the most genuine deflagration of this dialectical and paradoxical movement. So, this is a fundamental characteristic of embodiment that Freud already presumes in his clinical experience. Despite Freud's ambivalent relationship with philosophy, this study makes a laconic incursion in his theory, focusing on the notions of desire and unconscious, in order to reconstruct the problematic of the unconscious in Merleau-Ponty. This one, while recognizing the Freudian merit, criticizes and challenges some points, in order to propose his own notion of carnal unconscious. This proposal has as central axis the notion of carnality, which culminates in an ontological rehabilitation of the sensible and announces a challenge to the conception of unconscious structured as a language, typically Lacanian. / O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar a concepção de corpo e sexualidade numa perspectiva fenomenológico-psicanalítica, e, a partir dessa reconstrução, compreender a noção de inconsciente carnal em Merleau-Ponty, noção que passa a ser instituída a partir de uma articulação com a teoria psicanalítica. Para tanto, o trabalho tem como base investigativa a primeira parte da Fenomenologia da Percepção de Maurice Merleau-Ponty, texto capital no qual é explorado o tema da experiência do corpo próprio e seu contraponto crítico às teorias tradicionais vigentes na ciência e na metafísica modernas. A doutrina cartesiana do corpo está fundada no princípio de que o pensamento é anterior à percepção, isto é, o espírito possui primazia metafísica e cognitiva em relação ao corpo. O corpo se caracteriza por exercer uma função meramente instrumental em relação à alma. O empirismo, por seu turno, fundamenta o conhecimento na experiência sensível em que o corpo se define como um pedaço da matéria, um objeto de estudo da anatomia. Ora, Merleau-Ponty identifica, nessas duas posições canônicas (intelectualismo e empirismo), uma convergência de base: um princípio dualista de abordagem, que camufla a experiência mais própria dos fenômenos percebidos, dentre eles, a experiência do corpo próprio  dualismo que cinde nossa experiência interna e externa, espiritual e corporal. Assim, a tradição termina por mascarar a verdadeira experiência do corpo de tal maneira que a sexualidade não passa de um instinto, de um processo fisiológico isolado, um mecanismo predeterminado. Para a tradição filosófica ou até mesmo científica, a afetividade se torna um tema irrelevante, sem receber qualquer estatuto ontológico mais proeminente. Diferentemente, mostra Merleau-Ponty, Freud terá sido aquele que lançará novas bases teóricas no sentido de se repensar mais radicalmente a experiência da sexualidade, ao considerar o fato de que tudo o que o ser humano faz tem um ou mais sentidos. Assim, a sexualidade não é apenas um processo fisiológico isolado, já que o próprio homem é visto como um ser cultural e histórico, um ser produtor de sentido, pois o corpo se revela, em sua radicalidade última, como ser sexuado . Sem jamais se reduzir à condição de objeto, o corpo se torna fonte de sentido. É uma experiência viva. A sexualidade se torna, pois, a deflagração mais genuína desse movimento dialético e paradoxal. Ora, essa é uma característica fundamental da corporeidade que Freud já presumirá em sua experiência clínica. Apesar da ambivalente relação de Freud com a filosofia, este estudo faz uma lacônica incursão na sua teoria, enfocando as noções de desejo e de inconsciente, para reconstruir a problemática sobre o inconsciente em Merleau-Ponty. Este, ao mesmo tempo em que reconhece o mérito freudiano, critica e questiona alguns pontos, para propor a sua própria noção de inconsciente carnal. Essa proposta tem como eixo central a noção de carne, que culmina numa reabilitação ontológica do sensível e anuncia uma provocação à concepção de inconsciente estruturado como linguagem, tipicamente lacaniana.

It is not uncommon to read claims of music’s ability to affect our sense of time and its rate of passage. Indeed, such effects are often considered among the most distinctive and prized aspects of musical aesthetics. Yet when it comes to the similarly abstract notion of space and its manipulation by musical structures, theorists are generally silent. My dissertation addresses this gap in the literature and shows how music’s spatial effects arise through an affective engagement with musical works. In this study, I examine an eclectic selection of compositions to determine how the spaces we inhabit are transformed by the music we hear within them. Drawing on Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s theory of embodied perception, as well as research on acoustics, sound studies, and media theory, I deploy an affective model of spatial perception—a model that links the sense of space with the moment-to-moment needs and desires of the perceiver— to explain how these musical modulations of space occur. My claim is that the manner in which the music solicits our engagement affects how we respond, which in turn affects what we perceive. I begin by discussing the development of recording technology and how fixed media works deemed “spatial music” reinforce a particular conception of space as an empty container in which sound sources are arrayed in specific locations relative to a fixed listening position. After showing how innovative studio techniques have been used to unsettle this conventional spatial configuration, I then discuss examples of Renaissance vocal music, instrumental chamber music, and 20th century electronic music in order to develop a richer understanding of the range of spatial interactions that musical textures and timbres can provide. In my final chapter, I draw upon these varieties of affective engagement to construct a hermeneutic analysis of the spatial experience afforded by Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint, thereby modeling a phenomenological method for grounding interpretation in embodied, rather than strictly discursive, practices. By soliciting movement through the call for bodily action, music allows us an opportunity to fit together one world of possibilities with another, thereby providing an occasion for grasping new meanings presented through the work. The spatial aspect of music, therefore, does not consist in merely recognizing an environmental setting populated by individual sound sources. Through the embodied practices of music perception and the malleability of space they reveal, we are afforded an opportunity to reshape our understanding of the world around us.

¿Por qué plantear como problema el principio del proceso creativo en el arte en vez de lo bello en sí? Este último no es un problema que prime en el trabajo creativo del artista de hoy, como tampoco lo fue en los artistas de ayer, a pesar de haber sido y de ser un tema relevante para los filósofos. Desde la plataforma de los que somos artistas plásticos o visuales, el proceso creativo sí es parte de nuestra rutina. En ese sentido, urge seguir encontrando un mejor orden que ayude a organizar ese proceso.