Maurice Merleau-Ponty Quotes about Philosophy

The body is to be compared, not to a physical object, but rather to a work of art.

The body is to be compared, not to a physical object, but rather to a work of art.

Art, Philosophy, Medicine

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (2002). “Phenomenology of Perception”, p.174, Routledge

The phenomenological world is not the bringing to explicit expression of a pre-existing being, but the laying down of being. Philosophy is not the reflection of a pre-existing truth, but, like art, the act of bringing truth into being.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Art, Philosophy, Reflection

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1962). “Phenomenology of Perception”, p.19, Psychology Press

Theology recognizes the contingency of human existence only to derive it from a necessary being, that is, to remove it. Theology makes use of philosophical wonder only for the purpose of motivating an affirmation which ends it. Philosophy, on the other hand, arouses us to what is problematic in our own existence and in that of the world, to such a point that we shall never be cured of searching for a solution.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Philosophy, Philosophical, Hands

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1988). “In Praise of Philosophy and Other Essays”, p.44, Northwestern University Press

Even those who have desired to work out a completely positive philosophy have been philosophers only to the extent that, at the same time, they have refused the right to install themselves in absolute knowledge. They taught not this knowledge, but its becoming in us, not the absolute but, at most, our absolute relation to it, as Kierkegaard said. What makes a philosopher is the movement which leads back without ceasing from knowledge to ignorance, from ignorance to knowledge, and a kind of rest in this movement.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Philosophy, Ignorance, Work Out

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1988). “In Praise of Philosophy and Other Essays”, p.5, Northwestern University Press

The philosopher will ask himself ... if the criticism we are now suggesting is not the philosophy which presses to the limit that criticism of false gods which Christianity has introduced into our history.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Philosophy, Criticism, Limits

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1988). “In Praise of Philosophy and Other Essays”, p.47, Northwestern University Press

Thinking which displaces, or otherwise defines, the sacred has been called atheistic, and that philosophy which does not place it here or there, like a thing, but at the joining of things and words, will always be exposed to this reproach without ever being touched by it.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Philosophy, Thinking, Doe

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1988). “In Praise of Philosophy and Other Essays”, p.46, Northwestern University Press