Maybe it's because my major is French philosophy, or maybe it's because all disciplines need to learn something from philosophy, so I often have students majoring in literature, painting, photography, music, psychology, psychoanalysis, sports, film, linguistics, anthropology, embodied cognition, artificial intelligence, VR, etc. come to me: How should I integrate the theory of philosophy into my professional practice?
For he found that when he followed the advice of some people to read Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Husserl's General Theory of Pure Phenomenology, and so on, he often either doubted his ability to understand, or understood the theory but could not start.
Thus, when he heeded the advice of others to see the works of more practical philosophers, such as Nietzsche, Deleuze, Derrida, Agamben, Foucault, Baudrillard, etc., he either felt that these theories were a bit illusory or that he was caught in a fog of technical terms.
Every time at this time, I recommend Merleau Ponty.
On the one hand, because Meloponte did devote a great deal of space to all of the above issues, and on the other hand, because Meloponti, as a transitional figure between modern philosophy and contemporary philosophy, was the first to open up many topics in contemporary philosophy.
For example: What is the distinction between literature and philosophy? What is the difference between great prose and mediocre prose? What is the language in literature? Why is Cézanne's painting different from both Impressionism and Classicism? Cézanne has been painting for decades, what is Mont Sainte-Victor? What is the relationship between psychology and philosophy? Why is it that philosophy has no future without psychology, and psychology has no future without philosophy? How is sport achieved? Why define people as bodies instead of consciousness/mind/spirit? How is virtual space implemented? What is the relationship between the psychoanalytic body and the phenomenological body? What is the relationship between film and psychology? What does film have to do with photography? ...... These questions are endless, because during Meloponte's short 53-year philosophical career, he covered almost every field of academic study, and made outstanding contributions in most fields.
So why is there so little mention of Merleau Ponte, let alone of Melo Ponte's work? As far as the domestic situation is concerned, on the one hand, it is because the limelight of Sartre and Heidegger in the same period overshadowed Meloponty: Compared with Sartre, Merlebonti was more conservative and was reluctant to intervene in the actual political activities; compared with Heidegger, it is difficult to associate Merleponte's philosophy with his current situation.
On the other hand, it was because Merleau Ponty's Chinese translation was too late, and even if it was translated, the translation was not satisfactory. For example, One of Meloponti's most important books, Phenomenology of Perception, published by the Commercial Press in 2001 and translated by Mr. Jiang Zhihui, further made Merleauponte uninterested. Mr. Jiang Zhihui also translated other works by Melo Ponte, such as "Symbols", which were also unsatisfactory.
Another of Merleponte's early works, The Structure of Behavior, was not translated into Chinese by Yang Dachun until 2005. The most important work of Merleauponte's late period, The Visible and the Invisible, was not translated as Chinese by Mr. Luo Guoxiang until 2008.
So when you mention Merleau Ponty, you must say: Oh, the existential phenomenologist who wrote a very difficult book on the phenomenology of perception, and it was gone. I flipped through the B station, and it was roughly the same, and most of them hadn't seriously read even one of Merleauponti's books.
Of course, there is so much nonsense because this year there is finally a good thing, that is, Yang Dachun's translation of "Phenomenology of Perception" has finally been published, and at the same time, the Merleauponti collection has also been published in recent years, as follows:
For my part, because my undergraduate thesis was about Meloponte's body and expression, I had already roughly browsed all of Meloponti's Chinese works published at the time during my undergraduate studies, and nibbled on the French version of Phenomenology of Perception. During his master's degree, because it was Meloponti who was just preparing to study, he read the French version of "Visible and Invisible", "Malebrance, Birão and Bergson on the Unity of Mind and Body", and "Meaning and Meaninglessness".
Therefore, taking advantage of the publication of this collection of essays, I also want to organize a book club of Merleauponte, on the one hand, to re-read the texts I have read, and on the other hand, to read those who have not yet read them carefully.
Our initial plan is to base our intensive reading on the eighteen books in this collection. The basic plan is to carry out one subsection of a large chapter at a time for the tomes of "The Structure of Behavior", "Phenomenology of Perception", and "Visible and Invisible"; for the collections of essays such as "Symbols", "Philosophical Hymns", and "Meaning and Meaning", one or half of them are carried out at a time, in short, the purpose of the book club is to read the set of books word for word.
The reading session will be held every Friday night, 20:00-22:00, one and a half hours of intensive reading of the text, half an hour of Q&A;
In order to ensure the quality of the book club, our number is limited to 40 people, the participation price is 699 per person, and the first ten students who forward tweets to the circle of friends and register can be discounted to 599; subsequent registrations only enjoy the discount of 50% of the forwarding circle of friends.
Registration: Message
Catalogue of some of Merleponte's works
The Structure of Behavior
Meaning and Meaninglessness
Philosophical Praise
Phenomenology of Perception