Embodiment and Existence: Merleau-Ponty and the Limits of Naturalism

Abstract

The actual debate about naturalizing consciousness is in need of a more comprehensive notion of embodiment. Merleau-Ponty's existentialism of embodiment is relevant for this project. One can accept the validity of a naturalistic explanation of corporeal functions like perception and movement by correlating them to neurobiological activity. But for Merleau-Ponty, to exist as a human being means something much more complicated than exerting biological functions like breathing, feeding, perceiving and moving. We need to understand than as an embodied sense-giver. For man who "exists" as a corps-sujet, the lived body is not a functional machine that elicits an appropriate reaction to an environmental stimulus. Following Husserl, Merleau-Ponty fundamentally challenges this input-output, stimulus-reaction model. Embodiment is for him an essential element of human existence, which is defined by what he calls the symbolic function. Only through an understanding of existential behaviour can we comprehend the specificity of human embodiment, and eventually explain it properly. This entails that naturalistic explanations will have to be integrated in an existential approach. The project of naturalizing conscious embodiment is not invalidated by this approach, but acquires its proper, i.e. limited significance in the context of understanding human existence. I will first sketch, with reference to Husserl, the principles of a naturalistic understanding of embodiment and perception. I will then present Merleau-Ponty's original analysis of embodied, meaning constituting existence and show its relevance for an alternative, more comprehensive explanation of perception, which is supported by recent cognitive science. One can illustrate this analysis by presenting Merleau-Ponty's existential interpretation of the various pathologies of war-injured Schneider. One can then formulate conclusions as to the broader concept of embodiment that results from this analysis and point to its implementation in current cognitive research about intersubjective understanding.