Merleau-Ponty: Struttura e Natura

Abstract

The theme of nature crosses the entire oeuvre of Merleau-Ponty with shifts very close to dynamics - to movement - which seems to lead from the examination of consciousness to the analysis of the proper body and from this to the notion of flesh. In the Stru cture of Behavior, the sense of nature depends on the degree to which nature interacts with different forms of life and existence. In the Phenomenology of Perception the relation of the body to nature becomes structural, in the sense that the body stands to nature as the heart stands to the body. However, the rediscovery of this relationship does not seem to have been sufficient for ontological vision of the nature, that is, to bring its being into light. Thus, in the Visible and the Invisible and in the course La Nature, Merleau-Ponty wants to rediscover our connection primordial with nature and overcome all philosophical perspec-tives that separate the perceiver and the perceived, the speaker and the spoken, essence and exist-ence. The purpose of this paper is to present these shifts.