Embodied Perception and the Schemed World: Merleau-Ponty and John Dewey

Abstract

It is now widely accepted that a mind that is saturated with bodily experience is necessary for the dual constitution of the self and the perceptual field, and that the deployment of perception is always associated with a double reafferent flow—a tactile flow and a proprioceptive flow. In this article, I will discuss this issue in a pragmatically orientated way (following John Dewey), with a possible rejoinder from the phenomenological tradition (specifically Merleau-Ponty). I make cross-references between the thought of Merleau-Ponty and of Dewey, and I believe that many insights can be drawn from such comparison. By bringing pragmatic insights into the phenomenological context, I will place Dewey’s pragmatic way of thinking about the embodied mind in a different light. However, different though they may seem, I will further argue that there is a deep sympathy between the phenomenological and pragmatic perspectives of these two thinkers, especially when we take Dewey’s existential ontology into consideration.

Keywords

perception / body / ontology / Merleau-Ponty / John Dewey

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2019 Higher Education Press and Brill