Merleau-Ponty and “Existent Generality”: On Deep Temporality and the Nature of Phenomenology (original) (raw)

Abstract

Phenomenology, as radical empiricism, depends on encountering generality in things themselves, what Merleau-Ponty calls “existent generality”. An enigmatic note from Merleau-Ponty reveals how it is possible to encounter such generalities via the movement and development of things. I clarify this by conceptualizing generalities as what I call “familials.” I defend this view against charges of nominalism by emphasizing that we access generalities only through the reality of a temporality we share with them. Phenomenology’s transcendental condition, to which phenomenology is responsible, is thus what I call a deep temporality that is radically contingent and beyond the temporality of constituting subjectivity.

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