'In simple prose Merleau-Ponty touches on his principle themes. He speaks about
the body and the world, the coexistence of space and things, the unfortunate opt
imism of science - and also the insidious stickiness of honey, and the mystery o
f anger.' - James Elkins Maurice Merleau-Ponty was one of the most important thi
nkers of the post-war era. Central to his thought was the idea that human unders
tanding comes from our bodily experience of the world that we perceive: a decept
ively simple argument, perhaps, but one that he felt had to be made in the wake
of attacks from contemporary science and the philosophy of Descartes on the reli
ability of human perception.
From this starting point, Merleau-Ponty presented t
hese seven lectures on The World of Perception to French radio listeners in 1948
. Available in a paperback English translation for the first time in the Routled
ge Classics series to mark the centenary of Merleau-Ponty's birth, this is a daz
zling and accessible guide to a whole universe of experience, from the pursuit o
f scientific knowledge, through the psychic life of animals to the glories of th
e art of Paul Cezanne.
