Was Merleau-Ponty a 'transcendental' phenomenologist?

Dr Andrew Inkpin (The University of Melbourne)

Whether or not Merleau-Ponty's version of phenomenology should be considered a form of 'transcendental' philosophy is open to debate. Although the Phenomenology of Perception presents his position as a transcendental one, many of its features – e.g. its exploitation of empirical science – might lead to doubt that it can be. This paper argues that, despite his own rhetoric, Merleau-Ponty’s conception of phenomenology should not be considered transcendental. It begins by highlighting three features – the absolute ego, the pure phenomenal field, and the reduction – that Husserl had used to justify claims of a specifically transcendental kind within a phenomenological framework. I then consider how Merleau-Ponty modifies each feature to focus on the lived body and a factically conditioned phenomenal field, while remaining ambivalent about the reduction. Although Merleau-Ponty interprets these changes as yielding a revised form of transcendental phenomenology, I argue that his various revisions to Husserl’s position alter the modality of Merleau-Ponty’s claims in a way that undermines the supposed distinction between transcendental and empirical enquiry.

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