Motor intentionality and the case of Schneider

Rasmus Thybo Jensen

pp. 371-388

in: Dorothée Legrand, Thor Grünbaum, Joel Krueger (eds), Dimensions of bodily subjectivity, Phenomenology and the cognitive sciences 8 (3), 2009.

Abstract

I argue that Merleau-Ponty's use of the case of Schneider in his arguments for the existence of non-conconceptual and non-representational motor intentionality contains a problematic methodological ambiguity. Motor intentionality is both to be revealed by its perspicuous preservation and by its contrastive impairment in one and the same case. To resolve the resulting contradiction I suggest we emphasize the second of Merleau-Ponty's two lines of argument. I argue that this interpretation is the one in best accordance both with Merleau-Ponty's general methodology and with the empirical case of Schneider as it was described by Gelb and Goldstein.

Cited authors

Merleau-Ponty Maurice