Merleau-Ponty and the Essence of Nature - (New Perspectives in Ontology) by Taylor Knight

About the Book

Reconfigures our concept of nature through the concept of the element.

Book Synopsis

Taylor Knight reveals the way in which phenomenology initiates a return to ontology construed through a dialectical relationship between being and element. Within phenomenology's return to the elemental, Merleau-Ponty's late philosophy is a key locus, opening critical paths forward into an ontology for the ecological age. With reference to his phenomenological forebears - Heidegger, Husserl, Levinas - his non-phenomenological influences - Bachelard, Schelling, Freud - and his dialogue with Greek thought - Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle - Knight shows what is authentically new in Merleau-Ponty's late ontology.

Review Quotes

A truly creative extension of Merleau-Ponty's unfinished ontology.--Isaac Frisby, Durham University "International Journal of Philosophical Studies"

Knight works against the grain both of readings of Merleau-Ponty as a forerunner of Derrida or Foucault, and of the idea that many of his claims are strongly implicit already in the work of Husserl. Merleau-Ponty is instead situated in a line from Plato through some speculative idealism, as a philosopher turning endlessly around the knot of phenomenality and what it occludes.--Jeffrey Bloechl, Arthur J. Fitzgibbons Professor, and Chair of the Department of Philosophy, Boston College