Merleau-Ponty on the Phenomenology of the Social World

Abstract

The social world is the object of investigation of the social sciences or the human sciences. The common ground for any phenomenological philosophy of social sciences is the life-world (Lebenswelt). Husserl is concerned with the demonstration and explanation of the activities of consciousness of the transcendental subjectivity within which the lifeworld is constituted. Two pioneers of phenomenological philosophy of social sciences are Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Alfred Schutz. In this article, we discuss Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of the social world by relating it to the contours of Husserlian phenomenology. In doing so, we take up for discussion Merleau-Ponty's notion of the 'Primacy of Perception' and its relation to the notion of the body; self and the other; community and the role of dialogue in understanding the social world.