Merleau-ponty's political thought

its nature and its challenge

pp. 37-49

in: Bernard Dauenhauer, Elements of responsible politics, Berlin, Springer, 1991

Abstract

In the preface to Signs, Maurice Merleau-Ponty explicitly directs us to think history according to the model of langage (parlance) or of being. We are, he says, "in the field of history as in the field of parlance or of being."¹ That is, we are born into history as we are born into both parlance and perceptual being. These fields are neither chaotic nor fully determinate. Rather they all both manifest previously established structures and at the same time provide the resources and opportunities required for us to make our own distinctive contributions.