Ep. 48: Merleau-Ponty on Perception and Knowledge

Product Description

Discussing Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s “The Primacy of Perception and its Philosophical Consequences,” (1946) and World of Perception, (1948).

What is the relation of perception to knowledge? In M-P’s phenomenology, perception is primary: even our knowledge of mathematical truths is in some way conditioned by and dependent on the fact that we are creatures with bodies and senses that work the way they do. Science is great, but it doesn’t discover the truth of things hiding behind perception: it is an abstraction from certain kinds of perceptions. Other modes of approaching things, e.g. art, can equally well give us knowledge, though of a different kind. Read more about this topic.

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Running Time: 1 hr., 42 min. Recorded: November 20, 2011. Participants: Mark, Wes, Seth, and Dylan

As a bonus, your purchase includes a high-bitrate mp3 of the song that concludes the episode, “Write Me Off,” by Mark Lint & the Simulacra (2000, finished 2011).