Meeting 2/27: Sarfan on Merleau-Ponty

Hi folks,

This week at the Philosophy Club, Austin Sarfan will be giving a paper entitled: “The Root of Freedom in Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception.“

Here’s an abstract:

In Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception, the phenomenon of “focusing,” that is, bringing an object from a background into a foreground, plays an essential role. This paper traces the implications of the phenomenon of focusing through an examination of its role in natural perception, personal life, and social life. Focusing transforms contingency into necessity because it “holds” the focused object as a kind of integral possession. That is, because we perceive the object at the end of our gaze as self-evident, it takes on aura of necessary presence. Merleau-Ponty argues that this phenomenon of perceived necessity generates, from actual experience, our conceptions of necessity, ideality, and even eternity, which sustain notions of human nature, social tradition, and even geometric shapes.

While conceptions of necessity and ideality give social and personal life a meaning, they can also be oppressive because they obscure other possibilities. Ultimately, in conceiving of freedom as an awareness of original contingency as opposed to universal necessity, I argue that the primordially ethical gesture is creation. In the creative moment, by demonstrating that one can “pass beyond” defined limits, others are brought face to face with their original freedom.

Thursday 2/27, 6-7PM, Stuart 209. There will be food.

Hope to see you there

Phil