The Logos of the Sensible World

A presentation of the two-semester lecture course on Merleau-Ponty given at Duquesne University from 1970 to 1971 by the esteemed American philosopher.

Devoted primarily to a close reading of the French philosopher's magnum opus, Phenomenology of Perception, this course begins with a detailed analysis of The Structure of Behavior. The central topics considered in the lectures include the functions of the phenomenological body, beyond realism and idealism, the structures of the lived world, spatiality, temporality, language, sexuality, and perception and knowledge. Sallis illuminates Merleau-Ponty's first two works and offers a thread to follow through developments in his later essays. Merleau-Ponty's notion of the primacy of perception and his claim that "the end of a philosophy is the account of its beginning" are woven throughout the lectures. For Sallis's part, these lectures are foundational for his extended engagement with Merleau-Ponty's The Visible and the Invisible, which was published in Sallis's Phenomenology and the Return to Beginnings.