{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/20026"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/20026","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Merleau-Ponty and the dialectic of perception","abstract":"\"Thought about perception finds itself confronting an antinomy: On one hand it would seem perception is the result of causal action--the effect of external objects upon us; on the other hand, there are compelling reasons to understand perception as an internally constituted event. The predominant post-Cartesian theory of perception--causal representation theory--has attempted to resolve this puzzle by synthesizing the two contrapositions through the postulation of sense-data. I argue that the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty offers a detailed and sustained critique of the program implicit in every phase of this dialectic: each type of theory, in its turn, attempts to explain the event of perception in terms of an ontological commitment that is essentially derivative from perception and hence a distorting abstraction from it. After developing each theory and re-constructing Merleau-Ponty's most persuasive arguments, I defend his own positive contribution--his \"\"phenomenology\"\" of perception--which identifies a range of interwoven perceptual structures that serve as ontological pre-conditions for thought: (1) the genealogy of objectivity, (2) the projective living body, and (3) the intersubjective world. I conclude that Merleau-Ponty's philosophy offers a solution to the antinomy of perception by inviting us to abandon the faulty ontological categories that inform it.\"","abstract_html":""Thought about perception finds itself confronting an antinomy: On one hand it would seem perception is the result of causal action--the effect of external objects upon us; on the other hand, there are compelling reasons to understand perception as an internally constituted event. The predominant post-Cartesian theory of perception--causal representation theory--has attempted to resolve this puzzle by synthesizing the two contrapositions through the postulation of sense-data. I argue that the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty offers a detailed and sustained critique of the program implicit in every phase of this dialectic: each type of theory, in its turn, attempts to explain the event of perception in terms of an ontological commitment that is essentially derivative from perception and hence a distorting abstraction from it. After developing each theory and re-constructing Merleau-Ponty's most persuasive arguments, I defend his own positive contribution--his ""phenomenology"" of perception--which identifies a range of interwoven perceptual structures that serve as ontological pre-conditions for thought: (1) the genealogy of objectivity, (2) the projective living body, and (3) the intersubjective world. I conclude that Merleau-Ponty's philosophy offers a solution to the antinomy of perception by inviting us to abandon the faulty ontological categories that inform it."","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Hass, Lawrence Robert"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Philosophy","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Melnick, Arthur"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2011,"date_issued":"2011-05-07T12:26:27Z","date_published":"2011-05-07T12:26:27Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:15Z","subjects":["Philosophy"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":["Copyright 1991 Hass, Lawrence Robert"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["AAI9124421","(UMI)AAI9124421"],"render_values":[{"text":"AAI9124421","href":null,"code":true},{"text":"(UMI)AAI9124421","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/20026","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Melnick, Arthur"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Hass, Lawrence Robert"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2011-05-07T12:26:27Z","10000-01-01","1991"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Philosophy"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Philosophy"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 1991 Hass, Lawrence Robert"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["AAI9124421","(UMI)AAI9124421","http://hdl.handle.net/2142/20026"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["\"Thought about perception finds itself confronting an antinomy: On one hand it would seem perception is the result of causal action--the effect of external objects upon us; on the other hand, there are compelling reasons to understand perception as an internally constituted event. The predominant post-Cartesian theory of perception--causal representation theory--has attempted to resolve this puzzle by synthesizing the two contrapositions through the postulation of sense-data. I argue that the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty offers a detailed and sustained critique of the program implicit in every phase of this dialectic: each type of theory, in its turn, attempts to explain the event of perception in terms of an ontological commitment that is essentially derivative from perception and hence a distorting abstraction from it. After developing each theory and re-constructing Merleau-Ponty's most persuasive arguments, I defend his own positive contribution--his \"\"phenomenology\"\" of perception--which identifies a range of interwoven perceptual structures that serve as ontological pre-conditions for thought: (1) the genealogy of objectivity, (2) the projective living body, and (3) the intersubjective world. I conclude that Merleau-Ponty's philosophy offers a solution to the antinomy of perception by inviting us to abandon the faulty ontological categories that inform it.\"","Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T12:26:27Z (GMT). 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The predominant post-Cartesian theory of perception--causal representation theory--has attempted to resolve this puzzle by synthesizing the two contrapositions through the postulation of sense-data. I argue that the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty offers a detailed and sustained critique of the program implicit in every phase of this dialectic: each type of theory, in its turn, attempts to explain the event of perception in terms of an ontological commitment that is essentially derivative from perception and hence a distorting abstraction from it. After developing each theory and re-constructing Merleau-Ponty's most persuasive arguments, I defend his own positive contribution--his \"\"phenomenology\"\" of perception--which identifies a range of interwoven perceptual structures that serve as ontological pre-conditions for thought: (1) the genealogy of objectivity, (2) the projective living body, and (3) the intersubjective world. I conclude that Merleau-Ponty's philosophy offers a solution to the antinomy of perception by inviting us to abandon the faulty ontological categories that inform it.\"","Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T12:26:27Z (GMT). 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