Espace, mouvement et corps virtuels chez Merleau-Ponty
Methodos September 23, 2019 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.4000/methodos.5014 via DOAJ
Summary
Merleau-Ponty's concepts of virtual space, virtual movement, and virtual body, borrowed from early 20th-century psychology, are essential to his philosophy of perception. The article links these three notions, showing how they describe the perceptual field's latent possibilities and the body's intentional orientation. Virtual space is the horizon of potential actions, virtual movement the implied bodily engagement, and virtual body the lived body's capacity to project into that space. Together they demonstrate that perception is not passive reception but an active, embodied relation to the world.
Study at a glance
| Design | theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | Merleau-Ponty's notions of virtual space, virtual movement, and virtual body are key elements of his philosophy of perception, establishing the embodied and active nature of perceptual experience. |
Abstract
In the Structure of Behaviour Merleau-Ponty introduces the concept of “virtual space” and those of “virtual movement” and “virtual body” in the Phenomenology of perception. The purpose of this article is to establish the links between these three notions that Merleau-Ponty borrows from the psychological literature of his time and to show why they constitute key elements of his philosophy of perception.