The Flesh of the World: Merleau-Ponty’s Late Ontology

By the late 1950s, Merleau-Ponty felt that his Phenomenology of Perception had not gone far enough. Describing how the body structures perception still risked leaving intact the old oppositions between subject and object, inner and outer, self and world. What was needed was a deeper account of being itself—an ontology that could explain why these dualisms arise and how they might be overcome. His unfinished masterpiece, The Visible and the Invisible, takes up this task.

Reversibility and the Chiasm

A striking example guides his shift: the hand that touches another hand. When I place one hand upon the other, I am both the toucher and the touched. The roles can reverse in an instant, but they cannot be lived simultaneously. This reversible relation reveals a truth deeper than either subjective experience or objective description: the body is woven into a circuit of perception where the seer can be seen, the toucher can be touched.

Merleau-Ponty calls this structure the chiasm, borrowing the Greek word for a crossing or intertwining. Consciousness and world are not two separate orders that somehow connect—they are folded into one another.

The Flesh of the World

To name this deeper layer, he introduces the concept of flesh. Flesh is not matter, substance, or spirit. It is the elemental fabric of reality, the shared medium that makes perception and relation possible. My body is made of the same “stuff” as the world it perceives, and so there is no absolute gulf between subject and object. Instead, there is a continuous texture that allows for their reversible relation.

This ontology of flesh transforms phenomenology into a philosophy of being. The world is not an object before a subject; it is the very tissue in which subjects and objects co-emerge.

The idea of flesh dissolves the classical binaries that haunted Western thought. Mind and body, nature and culture, even self and other, are not radically opposed but variations within the same fabric. This does not erase difference but situates it within a field of intertwining.

The implications are wide-ranging. In ecology, it suggests a kinship between humans and the natural world: we belong to the same flesh, not as detached observers but as participants. In ethics, it grounds intersubjectivity in a shared being: the other is not radically alien but already inscribed in the fabric I inhabit. In art, it illuminates how painting, music, or poetry can disclose dimensions of reality inaccessible to science.

An Unfinished Vision

Merleau-Ponty died suddenly in 1961 at the age of 53, leaving The Visible and the Invisible in fragments. Yet even in its incomplete state, the work reveals the trajectory of his thought: from describing the lived body to articulating a new ontology where body and world, self and other, meet in the elemental flesh.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty: The Philosopher of the Lived Body

Embodiment and Perception: Merleau-Ponty’s Reversal of the Cogito

Merleau-Ponty and The Phenomenology of the World: Intersubjectivity, Language, and Expression

Merleau-Ponty and The Phenomenology of the World: Intersubjectivity, Language, and Expression

From the Individual to the World

After establishing the body as the ground of perception, Merleau-Ponty turns to the broader question: how does my embodied being connect me to others and to a shared world of meaning? If the body is my way of being in the world, then it must also be my way of being with others. Perception is never solitary. It is already oriented toward intersubjectivity—the mutual recognition of embodied beings inhabiting the same field of existence.

This is not a matter of inferring that others have minds, as Descartes once worried. I do not reason my way to the existence of the other. I encounter the other directly through their gestures, expressions, and presence. A smile, a raised eyebrow, the tilt of a head—these are not signs I must decode but forms of meaning that my body immediately understands.

The Silent Language of Gestures

Merleau-Ponty gives priority to this pre-verbal communication. Before language, there is the dialogue of bodies. A mother and infant exchange looks and touches that already establish a world of meaning. A dancer’s movement or an actor’s posture can express more than a paragraph of words.

This insight helps us understand intersubjectivity without reducing it either to biological reflexes or abstract reasoning. We are open to others because we inhabit the same “flesh of the world,” and our bodies are attuned to the gestures of others as meaningful.

Language as Embodied Expression

From this starting point, Merleau-Ponty develops his rich philosophy of language. He resists the temptation to treat language as a neutral code or a transparent tool for transmitting ideas. Words are not just labels attached to ready-made thoughts. Language is a form of expression that brings meaning into being.

When a poet finds the right word, it is not a simple act of attaching language to a pre-existing idea. The idea itself crystallizes through the word. Similarly, when we struggle to articulate a feeling, we do not merely translate from inner sensation to outer sound—we discover what the feeling is by giving it form in speech.

Merleau-Ponty describes this as the difference between spoken speech (language already sedimented into conventions) and speaking speech (the living act of expression). In speaking speech, language is not a vessel but a creative force.

Art as the Revelation of Perception

It is no surprise, then, that Merleau-Ponty was drawn to the arts, especially painting. He wrote extensively on Cézanne, whom he admired for showing the world not as a finished object but as it comes into being through vision. For Merleau-Ponty, a painting is not an imitation of reality but a revelation of perception’s structure. The brushstroke discloses the way the eye dwells in color and form.

Art exemplifies the intertwining of perception and expression. Just as language makes thought manifest, painting makes visible the invisible act of seeing. This explains why artworks can strike us as more “true” than a photograph: they express the very way the world is given to us, rather than a mere reproduction of surfaces.

The Social Body and Political Expression

Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy also extends into the political sphere. If our very capacity to share a world depends on embodied intersubjectivity, then social life is rooted in the body as well. Politics is not simply a matter of institutions and laws but of how bodies encounter one another in public space, how voices are heard or silenced, how gestures of solidarity or exclusion shape the fabric of community.

This explains why he was drawn to Marxism in his early years—not because he accepted determinist doctrine, but because he sought a philosophy that could honor the lived, bodily reality of oppression and struggle. Later, as he distanced himself from dogma, he still maintained that politics must be understood as a field of embodied meaning, not as a chessboard of abstract forces.

Expression as Ontology

At this stage of his thought, Merleau-Ponty sees expression not as a secondary activity layered onto a silent world but as the very way the world becomes meaningful. Gestures, words, paintings, and political acts are all forms of expression that disclose reality. The world is not a mute background but an inexhaustible field that calls for articulation.

Why This Matters

Merleau-Ponty’s account of intersubjectivity and expression offers a way to think about communication, art, and politics without falling into dualisms. It helps explain why miscommunication is so painful: it is not simply a failure of codes but a fracture in the shared world. It clarifies why art can transform perception itself, not just reflect it. And it grounds the idea that social justice is not only about resources or rules but about recognition—whether bodies are seen, heard, and allowed to express themselves.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty: The Philosopher of the Lived Body

Embodiment and Perception: Merleau-Ponty’s Reversal of the Cogito

The Flesh of the World: Merleau-Ponty’s Late Ontology

Embodiment and Perception: Merleau-Ponty’s Reversal of the Cogito

The Body as Our General Medium for Having a World

Merleau-Ponty’s most famous declaration is deceptively simple: “The body is our general medium for having a world.” With this, he rewrites the opening line of modern philosophy. Instead of Descartes’ cogito, which begins with thinking as the foundation of certainty, Merleau-Ponty situates perception—bodily, situated, pre-reflective perception—as the true starting point. Before we reflect, reason, or judge, we are already immersed in a field of meaningful relations.

What this means is that the world does not appear to us as a collection of raw data waiting to be processed, nor as an idea constructed by pure reason. It appears as already meaningful through the body’s engagement with it. The child reaching for a toy, the driver instinctively steering into a curve, the pianist playing without conscious calculation—all these are examples of what Merleau-Ponty calls motor intentionality.

Against Empiricism and Intellectualism

Merleau-Ponty identifies two dominant but flawed accounts of perception.

1. Empiricism assumes perception is passive reception of sense-impressions, like light striking a photographic plate. But this fails to explain how we perceive structures and meanings rather than scattered sensations. We do not see dots of color—we see a chair, a path, a face.

2. Intellectualism claims perception is the product of mental construction: the mind organizes sense-data according to categories. But this overlooks the fact that perception comes before thought, before the application of concepts.

His radical alternative is that the body itself is intelligent. Perception is not the result of reasoning but the very mode in which we are in touch with the world.

The Pre-Reflective Layer of Experience

One of Merleau-Ponty’s great contributions is the insistence on the pre-reflective. Reflection—our ability to analyze and interpret—does not create meaning from nothing but rests on a foundation of embodied, unthematized contact with the world.

Consider the phenomenon of the phantom limb, which fascinated him. Even after amputation, a person may continue to feel the presence of their lost arm or leg. This is not an illusion in the ordinary sense but a sign that the body’s sense of itself is not reducible to physical parts. The body is lived from within as a schema of possible actions and perceptions.

In everyday life this becomes clear in habit. A skilled typist does not think of each key, nor does a tennis player calculate angles. The body has absorbed patterns that guide action without explicit thought. Habits are not mechanical routines but expressions of embodied intelligence, showing that the line between perception and action is porous.

The Reversal of the Cogito

By grounding knowledge in the lived body, Merleau-Ponty overturns centuries of philosophy. The I think of Descartes gives way to an I can. Consciousness is not first a detached gaze upon the world but a capacity to move, grasp, and dwell in it.

This shift has profound consequences. It means that philosophy must start not from a universal subject or abstract reason but from the concrete, bodily subject situated in history and culture. It also means that science, while powerful, cannot exhaust the richness of perception: the body is not merely an object among others but the very condition of appearing.

Why This Matters

Merleau-Ponty’s analysis resonates far beyond the seminar room. In psychology, it anticipates embodied approaches to cognition. In the arts, it explains why a painting can disclose the structure of vision more vividly than a scientific diagram. In daily life, it gives language to something we intuit: that much of our knowing and being is carried in the silent wisdom of the body.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty: The Philosopher of the Lived Body

Merleau-Ponty and The Phenomenology of the World: Intersubjectivity, Language, and Expression

The Flesh of the World: Merleau-Ponty’s Late Ontology

Maurice Merleau-Ponty: The Philosopher of the Lived Body

The Forgotten Partner of Existentialism

When people think of mid-20th century French philosophy, names like Sartre, Beauvoir, or perhaps Camus come up first. Merleau-Ponty is often left in the margins, even though during his lifetime he was one of the most respected philosophers in France. He taught at the Sorbonne and later at the Collège de France, co-edited Les Temps Modernes with Sartre, and was deeply engaged in politics and art. Yet his project was never quite reducible to existentialism, Marxism, or phenomenology in the strict sense.

Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) is best understood as the philosopher who placed embodiment at the center of philosophy. Where Descartes began with the thinking subject, and Husserl with the structures of consciousness, Merleau-Ponty began with the lived body—that mysterious intersection where perception, action, and world are inseparable.

A Life Between Philosophy and Politics

Born in Rochefort-sur-Mer, he grew up in a France shaken by two world wars. He studied at the École Normale Supérieure alongside Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, forming intellectual friendships that would shape postwar philosophy. Politically, he was at first sympathetic to Marxism, searching for a way to reconcile freedom with social structures, though he would later distance himself from rigid ideology.

His major works include The Structure of Behavior (1942), Phenomenology of Perception (1945), and the unfinished The Visible and the Invisible (1964, published posthumously). Each book deepened his commitment to the idea that philosophy must return to the world of experience, before science or theory abstracts it away.

The Body as Our Medium of Being-in-the-World

For Merleau-Ponty, the body is not just an object in space, like a machine controlled by a mind. It is the very condition for having a world at all. We do not first think and then perceive; rather, our body perceives before reflection, orienting us in space and time.

This insight seems simple but it has radical consequences. It overturns centuries of philosophy that separated mind and body, subject and object. In contrast to Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am,” Merleau-Ponty suggests something closer to “I perceive, therefore I am embodied.”

Context Among His Peers

Merleau-Ponty’s position can be clarified by contrast:

• Against empiricism, he argued that perception is not mere reception of sense-data. We don’t build the world out of raw inputs.

• Against intellectualism, he claimed that perception is not a construction by abstract reason. Meaning arises in the act of perceiving itself.

• With Husserl, he shared the phenomenological method of returning “to the things themselves,” but he radicalized it by stressing the primacy of the body.

• Alongside Sartre, he explored freedom and lived experience, but resisted Sartre’s sharp dualisms between self and other, freedom and facticity.

Why Begin with Merleau-Ponty?

For a reader with philosophical training, Merleau-Ponty offers a way of thinking that is both rigorous and deeply human. He resists both the cold reductions of science and the abstractions of pure theory. His focus is the texture of lived life: the feel of a hand’s movement, the silent communication of a gaze, the painter’s brushstroke revealing a world.

To approach Merleau-Ponty is to be reminded that philosophy is not only about logic or metaphysics but about our actual inhabitation of the world—our breathing, moving, perceiving selves.

Get More Embodied:

In the next part of this series, we will dive into his central thesis: embodiment and perception as the foundation of knowledge and meaning. There, Merleau-Ponty makes his most radical claim—that consciousness is not a detached spectator but is always already in the world, sensing, acting, and being acted upon.

1. Embodiment and Perception: Merleau-Ponty’s Reversal of the Cogito
2. Merleau-Ponty and The Phenomenology of the World: Intersubjectivity, Language, and Expression
3. The Flesh of the World: Merleau-Ponty’s Late Ontology

Sartre and Husserl’s Phenomenology

Jean-Paul Sartre's engagement with Edmund Husserl's phenomenology played a pivotal role in shaping his philosophical outlook. Sartre's thought is is characterized by both debt to and his departure from Husserl’s phenomenological method.

Sartre was introduced to Husserl’s phenomenology during his time in Berlin in the early 1930s, a period of intellectual transformation for the young philosopher. Husserl's phenomenological project, which aimed to return to the "things themselves" by exploring consciousness and its intentional structures, profoundly influenced Sartre. Husserl’s work offered a way to break free from the idealism dominating French philosophy at the time, and Sartre enthusiastically embraced phenomenology as a means to engage with the concrete reality of lived experience.

However, Sartre’s relationship with Husserl was not one of uncritical acceptance. While he was deeply influenced by Husserl’s Ideen I, Sartre was equally committed to modifying and challenging its conclusions. In particular, Sartre took issue with Husserl’s concept of the transcendental ego, which Husserl claimed was essential for the unity of consciousness. Sartre rejected this, arguing that the ego is not an essential component of consciousness but rather something that emerges from reflective acts. For Sartre, consciousness is fundamentally intentional and directed outward toward the world, not inherently tied to a stable ego.

Sartre’s reinterpretation of phenomenology culminated in his own groundbreaking work Being and Nothingness (1943), where he develops his concept of "nothingness" as central to human existence. Sartre argues that consciousness is not a “thing” in itself but a process of negation that allows humans to transcend their given conditions. This marks a significant departure from Husserl, who emphasized the stability of the ego within the framework of intentionality. Sartre, by contrast, insists that human beings are constantly in the process of self-creation, free to define themselves but burdened by the weight of this freedom.

The chapter also delves into Sartre’s work on imagination, a theme that emerged from his engagement with Husserl’s thought. Sartre’s early works, such as The Imaginary (1940), reflect his attempt to grapple with how consciousness relates to non-existent objects, such as those encountered in imagination and dreams. Sartre built on Husserl’s insights but also critiqued what he saw as Husserl’s over-reliance on abstract essences. For Sartre, imagination was not merely a passive reflection of mental content but an active, creative process that reveals the freedom inherent in human consciousness.

In essence, while Sartre drew heavily from Husserl’s phenomenology, he transformed it into something uniquely his own. His emphasis on freedom, negation, and the fluidity of consciousness set him apart from Husserl’s more structured and ego-centered approach. Sartre’s phenomenology, as outlined in this chapter, became a dynamic tool for understanding the human condition, one that emphasized the existential struggles of freedom, responsibility, and self-creation.

Know more:

Five Key Thinkers in Phenomenology

Heidegger's "Dasein" compared with Husserl's "transcendental I"

Edmund Husserl was the founder of phenomenology while Martin Heidegger was its main precursor. Both philosophers include within their phenomenological theory a conception of "self" or "selfhood" as that which experiences phenomena. But while Husserl calls this self the "transcendental I", Heidegger's version is much more immanent and is called Dasein ("being-there").

Transcendental I vs Dasein

Edmund Husserl's concept of the "transcendental I" refers to the subject or ego that is the source of all conscious experience. According to Husserl, the transcendental I is a pre-reflective, pre-theoretical level of consciousness that underlies all of our experience and thought. It is the point of origin for all of our intentions and actions, and it is the source of our ability to direct our attention and to form concepts.

Martin Heidegger's concept of Dasein refers to the human mode of being or existence. Heidegger describes Dasein as being-in-the-world, which means that humans are not just conscious beings, but also beings that are always situated in a specific context or environment. Dasein is characterized by its ability to ask questions about its own existence and to engage in self-reflection.

Overall, the concepts of the "transcendental I" and Dasein both explore the nature of the human self and its relationship to the world. However, while Husserl's concept of the "transcendental I" emphasizes the subjective, consciousness-based nature of the self, Heidegger's concept of Dasein emphasizes the embodied, contextual nature of the self and its existence in the world.

Similarities and differences

One key similarity between Heidegger's "Dasein" and Husserl's "transcendental I" is that both Husserl and Heidegger were interested in understanding how we experience the world and how our subjective experience shapes our understanding of reality.

However, there are also significant differences between the two philosophers. One key difference is their focus and areas of interest. While Husserl is known for his work on the nature of consciousness and the self, Heidegger's work is more concerned with the nature of being and existence. Heidegger's concept of Dasein, which refers to the human mode of being or existence as being-in-the-world, is a central part of his philosophy and distinguishes his approach from that of Husserl.

Another key difference is their methodologies. While Husserl's approach is more systematic and formal, Heidegger's approach is more interpretive and hermeneutic. This difference is reflected in the way that the two philosophers approach the study of Phenomenology and the kinds of questions that they seek to answer.

Learn more:

What is phenomenology

Five key thinkers in phenomenology

Phenomenology between Husserl and Heidegger

Understanding Dasein: Heidegger’s Notion of Human Existence

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*The writing of this text was assisted by OpenAI’s GPT-3 model and modified by the author.

Introduction to the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas

Emmanuel Levinas was a French philosopher and theologian. Levinas was born in Lithuania in 1906 and immigrated to France as a young man. He was influenced by the emerging field of phenomenology and the work of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger who were his teachers. He is best known for his ethical philosophy, particularly the concept of "ethics as first philosophy." This means that, for Levinas, ethics should take precedence over other forms of philosophical inquiry as the most basic form of human existence. In other words, the nature of our sense of self and reality are tied to our ethical obligations to others..

Levinas and the Other

One of the key concepts in Levinas's philosophy is the idea of "the other." For Levinas, the encounter with the other person is what fundamentally shapes our ethical obligations. In his view, the other person is fundamentally different from us and cannot be reduced to an object or a concept. Instead, the other person demands a response from us, and it is through this response that we become ethical beings.

Levinas's influence on philosophy and phenomenology

Levinas's philosophy has had a significant influence on a number of other philosophers and thinkers, particularly in the fields of ethics and political theory. His work has been discussed by a wide range of scholars, including Jean-François Lyotard, Jacques Derrida, and Jean-Luc Nancy. Despite this influence, however, Levinas's philosophy remains a subject of debate and controversy. Some critics have argued that his emphasis on the other person can lead to a form of moral relativism, while others have questioned the practical implications of his ideas. Nevertheless, his work continues to be a subject of interest and discussion in the field of philosophy.

To learn more:

Heidegger and Levinas on being with others

Levinas, the Self and Altruism

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*This text was created with the aid of OpenAI’s GPT-3 model and modified by the author.

Five Key Thinkers in Phenomenology

Phenomenology is a philosophical movement that originated in the early 20th century and focuses on the study of consciousness and the objects of direct experience. This philosophical movement owes to thinkers like Hegel but essentially started with Edmund Husserl (see: origins of phenomenology. Other prominent thinkers in the field of phenomenology include Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Emmanuel Levinas. Here is a brief review of their work with links to further learning.

Edmund Husserl: father of phenomenology

Edmund Husserl is considered the founder of phenomenology. His famous philosophical call was to go "back to things themselves and study of actual human experience. Husserl developed the concept of "intentionality," which refers to the fact that consciousness is always directed towards something. He also introduced the ideas of the "phenomenological reduction" and "Epoché" which are a method for bracketing out preconceptions and focusing on the immediate experience of phenomena. Here you can find a study guide to Husserl's thought. 

Martin Heidegger: being in the world

Martin Heidegger is one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, and his work had a significant impact on phenomenology. He pointed out, after Husserl, that phenomenology should examine the phenomenon of existence itself, what he called the question of being. Heidegger is best known for his concepts of Dasein and "being-in-the-world," which emphasizes the inseparability of human beings from their environment. He also developed the idea of "ontological difference," which asserts that there is a fundamental distinction between beings and the being of beings. Another influential thought by Heidegger is that of "being-towards-death" which means the meaning of our life is determined by our relationship with our death. Here you can find an introduction to Martin Heidegger's Philosophy

Jean-Paul Sartre: existence precedes essence

Jean-Paul Sartre was a French philosopher who was heavily influenced by both Husserl and Heidegger. He is best known for his concept of "existentialism," which emphasizes the individual's freedom and responsibility in creating their own meaning in life. Sartre also developed the idea of "bad faith," which occurs when an individual denies their own freedom and acts inauthentically. One of Sartre's best known claims is that "existence precedes essence" meaning that the essence of out lives is not predetermined but left for us to decide if we like it or not.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty: the lived body

Maurice Merleau-Ponty was a French philosopher who was influenced by both Husserl and Heidegger. He is known for his concept of "phenomenological ontology," which asserts that the structure of human experience is fundamentally embodied and intersubjective. He also emphasized the importance of the "lived body" in our experience of the world. Merleau-Ponty was also influential in the thoght of human rights right after world war two.

Emmanuel Levinas: the face of the other

Emmanuel Levinas was a French philosopher who is known for his emphasis on the ethical implications of our relations with others. In other words, Levinas turned phenomenology and its questions of being into a study of ethical existence.Levinas developed the idea of "the face of the other," which emphasizes the infinite responsibility that we have towards others. In his later years he also introduced the concept of "substitution," which refers to the idea that we are responsible for the suffering of others. Here you can find a simple introduction to Levinas with additional articles.

More articles, explanation and summaries to be found in our What is Phenomenolgy page.

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*This text was created with the aid of OpenAI’s GPT-3 model and modified by the author.

Heidegger and Levinas on being with others

Martin Heidegger and Emmanuel Levinas have as much agreement as they do discord. One of these point of common ground with different stances is the topic of being in the world as being with others.

Heidegger famously termed this type of being "Mitsein" (see detailed explanation in the link). Levinas builds upon Heidegger's concept of Mitsein by emphasizing the ethical implications of human existence as "being-with" others. For Levinas, the fact that we are always already "with" others means that we have a fundamental responsibility towards them. This responsibility arises from the recognition of the other person as a subject with their own thoughts, feelings, and experiences, rather than as an object to be used or manipulated.

In contrast to Heidegger, who emphasizes the way that human existence is shaped by its relations to the world and to other people, Levinas focuses on the way that our relations with others are inherently ethical. He argues that our encounter with the other person is not just a matter of being in the same physical space or participating in the same social practices, but of recognizing the other person's inherent dignity and worth.

Being with infinity

This recognition of the other person's inherent worth is what Levinas calls "infinity," and it is this infinity that gives rise to our responsibility towards others. According to Levinas, this responsibility is not something that we choose or decide upon, but is something that arises from the very fact of our being-with others. It is a fundamental aspect of what it means to be human.

In this way, Levinas's concept of responsibility builds upon Heidegger's notion of Mitsein by emphasizing the ethical dimension of human existence. While Heidegger focuses on the way that we are always already "with" others, Levinas emphasizes the way that this "being-with" gives rise to a fundamental responsibility towards others.

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*This text was created with the aid of OpenAI’s GPT-3 model and modified by the author.

Meaning of Heidegger's "Mitsein" (being-with) Explained

Definition: Heidegger's concept of Mitsein, usualy translated as "being-with," refers to the fundamental fact of human existence that we are always already "with" others. The concept was first introduced in Heidegger's Being and Time and forms a central past in his phenomenology. What it means is that our experience of the world, of ourselves and of existence is always already shaped by our relations with other people and by the social and cultural contexts in which we find ourselves.

For Heidegger, Mitsein is not just a matter of being physically present with other people, but of being fundamentally intertwined with them in a way that is essential to our very being. We are always already "with" others in the sense that our thoughts, feelings, and actions are always already influenced by and directed towards them. Existence, in other words, is shared. 

Examples of Mitsein / Being-with

One example of Mitsein can be seen in the way that we use language. When we speak, we do not simply express our own individual thoughts and ideas, but we also participate in a shared language and a shared way of understanding the world. In this way, language itself can be seen as a kind of "being-with," as it allows us to communicate and interact with others in a meaningful way (this point if further developed by Levinas).

Another example of Mitsein can be seen in the way that we engage in social practices and institutions. When we participate in activities like going to school, going to work, or engaging in leisure activities, we do not do so in isolation, but rather as part of a larger social group. These activities are not simply things that we do by ourselves, but are always already shaped by our relationships with others and by the shared norms and values of our society.

In summary, Heidegger's concept of Mitsein highlights the fact that human existence is fundamentally social and relational. Being is being with others, and we are always already "with" others in a way that is essential to our being and our experience of the world.

Heidegger's concept of mitsein is closley realted to his concept of Dasein and other themes like "care", "temporality" and "being-in-the-world.

See also: Heidegger and Levinas on being with others

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*This text was created with the aid of OpenAI’s GPT-3 model and modified by the author.

Simple Explanation of Heidegger's Concept of Dasein

Definition: Heidegger's concept of Dasein, which is often translated as "being-there", refers to the unique way that human beings exist in the world. Heidegger's philosophy argues that human existence is fundamentally different from the existence of other things, such as objects or animals. Unlike previous philosophical conceptions of the self, which often treated the self as a fixed and unchanging entity, Heidegger's concept of Dasein emphasizes the dynamic and constantly changing nature of human existence. He argued that human beings are always in the process of becoming, and that they are constantly shaping and reshaping their identities through their interactions with the world around them.

Dasein and time

One of the key ideas in Heidegger's philosophy is that human beings have a unique relationship with time. He argued that we are always "thrown" into the world at a particular moment in time, and that our existence is defined by our relationship to the past, present, and future. This means that our understanding of ourselves and our place in the world is constantly evolving, and that we are never fixed or static.

Application and influence

Overall, Heidegger's concept of Dasein offers a new and unique perspective on the nature of human existence. It emphasizes the dynamic and constantly changing nature of the self, and it highlights the importance of our relationships with the world around us in shaping our identities. The concept helped to direct philosophical attention not just to things that exist in the world but to what it means to exist. 

While Heidegger's concept of Dasein has had a central place in his own philosophy, it has also been further developed and expanded upon by other philosophers. For example, Jean-Paul Sartre built upon Heidegger's ideas in his own philosophy of existentialism. Sartre's concept of "existence precedes essence" is closely related to Heidegger's idea of Dasein, and both philosophers emphasize the importance of human freedom and choice in shaping our lives. Other philosophers who have expanded upon Heidegger's concept of Dasein include Martin Buber, who explored the role of relationships in shaping human existence, and Hannah Arendt, who wrote extensively about the nature of political action and the way it shapes our experience of the world. Emmanuel Levinas was a critic of Heidegger but nevertheless took some of his methods and assumption to the sphere of ethics. 

Heidegger's concept of Dasein is related to his concept of Mitsein.

Read more in our Introduction to Martin Heidegger's Philosophy and the article about Understanding Dasein: Heidegger’s Notion of Human Existence

See also: Heidegger's "Dasein" compared with Husserl's "transcendental I".

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*This text was created with the aid of OpenAI’s GPT-3 model and modified by the author.

Heidegger's Ontological Difference Explained

Martin Heidegger's concept of ontological difference (also ontic-ontological difference) is his way of starting to answer his question of being. In his book "Being and Time" Heidegger criticized all previous philosophical conceptions of being which is viewed as something individually existing in the present . Viewed as something that is merely present, being is stripped of all temporal and meaningful references to the world: by stating that something exists, one cannot understand what something is.

Heidegger's critique ends with his teacher Edmund Husserl's phenomenological reduction. This is also a mistake for Heidegger who thinks it enables onto-theology, for example, to assume a supreme being which anchors reality through time such as God.

The way of ontological difference

For Hiedegger, a fundamental ontological investigation should bring together the question of being with the question of time. . In Being and Time, Heidegger wanted to place ontology on a new foundation. The starting point for his investigation was the "ontological difference" between being and beings. For Heidegger "Being is always the being of a being" but "The being of beings 'is' not itself a being." A search for being thus always only brings beings to light. However, being as the contextual background remains the prerequisite for beings to be. Only in this way can something be understood as something. Thus, despite the difference, being and beings remain related to one another. Neither is conceivable without the other: their relationship consists in the identity of difference.

Explained simply, being is used by Heidegger to describe the horizon of understanding which is based on what we encounter in the world itself. It is the context within which things can gain meaning. So when we encounter something, we only ever understand it through its meaning in a world. It is only this relationship to the actual world that constitutes its being. Beings, therefore, take part in being but are not being itself, and this is the ontological difference. This thought sets forth Heidegger's journey of understanding being through time.

Learn more:

Here you can read an introduction and find summaries and explanations on Heidegger’s “Being and Time”. You can also check out our introduction to Heidegger or our introduction to phenomenology.

Heidegger and The Question of Being in "Being and Time"

The main theme of Heidegger's "Being and Time" is the question of the meaning of being. Heidegger starts by quoting Plato's question of being at the beginning of the investigation. Heidegger writes that "For apparently you have long been familiar with what you actually mean when you use the expression 'being', but although we once thought we understood it, we are now embarrassed."  Even after two thousand years, according to Heidegger, this question is still unanswered: "Do we have an answer today to the question of what we actually mean by the word "being"? no way. And so it is important to ask the question about the meaning of being again.” 

So what does it mean to be? 

Heidegger asked about being as an action which one does within the world. He assumed that the world is not a formless mass, but that there are meaningful references in it. These meanings are not inherit in things themselves, but always have something to do with our relationship towards them. Therefore being for Heidegger is structured and possesses a certain unity in its diversity.  For example, there is a meaningful connection between the hammer and the nail – but how can this be understood? "From where, that is: from which given horizon do we understand something like being?". Heidegger's answer to this was: "The horizon from which something like being becomes understandable at all is time." According to Heidegger, the importance of time for being has not been considered in all previous philosophy. Time is needed as the dimension in which things can gain meaning. The question of being for Heidegger is therefore inseparable from its relation to time.

See also: Ontological Difference

 

Here you can read an introduction and find summaries and explanations on Heidegger’s “Being and Time”. You can also check out our introduction to Heidegger or our introduction to phenomenology.

 

Heidegger's Being and Time - Summary and Overview

Being and Time is Martin Heidegger's most influential book and one of the most important books in 20th century philosophy.  

In "Being and Time" Heidegger attempts to reshape the way in which philosophy thinks about the concept of "being". The book critically reviews different methodological currents in philosophy to demonstrate their shortcoming in answering the question of being. According to Heidegger, philosophical prejudices not only shape the entire intellectual history of the West, but also determine our everyday understanding of ourselves and the world.

  

The Meaning of Being

The main topic of "Being and Time" is the "Question of the meaning of being in general".  Heidegger asks about ontological being, i.e. about what is. But he also asks what it means to say that something "is", what it means to be. "Being" for Heidegger is something mutual to all different phenomenological appearances, and that thing is meaningful references. For example, a hammer and a nail are things which gain meaning by the manner in which people incorporate them into their purposeful actions. In asking about the meaning of being Heidegger aims to uncover the relationships underlying all individual meaningful references in everyday life. 

"Being and Time" does not answer the question of the meaning of life, but rather engages with the meaning of meaning as related to existence. Heidegger's main question is therefore: "why is there anything at all rather than nothing?". According to Heidegger, Western philosophy has given different answers in its tradition as to what it understands by being, but it has never posed the question of being in such a way that it asked about the meaning of being. Heidegger criticizes previous philosophical understandings which described being as something individual. However, by just stating that something is, one cannot understand what something is. If one takes the hammer merely as an existing piece of wood and iron, its relation to the nail cannot gain meaning.

 

The Relation between Being and Time

For Heidegger, the failure of philosophical tradition to grasp existence is largely due to disregarding its relation to time. Being is not just something which is present but also something with a past and future. In "Being and Time" Heidegger tries to prove that time is an essential condition for an understanding of being, since it sets an horizon of understanding against which things can find meaning in relation to one another. For example, the hammer is used to drive nails into boards to build a house that will protect people from future storms. So it can only be understood in relation to people and in the context which makes the hammer more than just connected pieces of wood an iron.

The bottom line of Heidegger's "Being and Time" is that thinking must be understood on the basis of new principles. There is a need for a "fundamental ontology" to account for the question of being and why thing are.

 

See also: 

Introduction to Martin Heidegger's Philosophy

What is Phenomenology? Introduction and Summary

Heidegger and The Question of Being in "Being and Time"

Ontological Difference

Concept of Dasein

Concept of Mitsein 

Meaning of Facticity in Phenomenology - short explanation and definition

In philosophical phenomeoloyg, "facticity" is the character of "factuality" and "contingency" of exsitence. Facticity can be understood as related to the "thusness" of everything which exists.

The term "facticity" was coined by Fichte to designate anything given without the possibility of rational justification, The term was later taken up by both existentialist and phenomenological philosophy (Sartre, Heidegger, Camus). The facticity of existence expresses the fact that our existence is unjustifiable, incomprehensible in itself. In phenomenological terms is states that the fact of us existing cannot be reduced nor fully grasped. 

Characteristics and examples of facticity

Our existence is a fact that is true long before we recognise it. We are born before becoming aware of ourselves, we discover our existence as a fact that we can only observe and not explain. Our own existence eluds our full seeing and understanding of it like an object that cannot be viewed from all directions at once.

Facticty as Heidegger's throwness

Martin Heidegger calls facticity "thrownness" in which the individual is thrown into the world without any prior consent or explanation. The fact of our existence is for Heidegger, as many othe phenomenologists, the one thing that can never be deduced as "fact". Our existence is of-course an undeniable fact, yet it is one that is undeniably impossible to fully explain.  

Heidegger's throwness means that we are always already alive within a certain historical status and within a certain horizon of possibilities.

See also: Meaning of facticity in existentialism 

Back to: What is Phenomenology

Alterity and Otherness in Phenomenology - meaning and definition

Alterity and Otherness are concepts used in various ways by different branches of philosophy. In phenomenology, alterity and otherness serve to describe the characteristic of being other or different, especially when referring to another conscious subject. The other is opposed to the self or the same, and selfhood is contrasted with otherness and alterity. Alterity can also be defined against "identity", the trait of being identical with oneself. 

The question of philosophical otherness ranges from morality and law, to humanities and social sciences and especially anthropology. In phenomenology it serves as special point of interest as the phenomena of otherness and alterity and manner by which it is experienced. 

 

Alterity and Otherness in the phenomenology of Emmanuel Levinas

The concepts of otherness and alterity were developed by the phenomenological philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas sees the other and the relation to otherness as an essential part of what makes us who we are. For him, selfhood is always relational and is always bound be a relation with alterity. Otherness for Levians directs our attention to our own selfhood as call for responsibility towards the other. Response and responsibility towards the other is the weight that gives meaning to our actions which are always directed towards alterity. 

For Levinas, the face of the other appears to us as infinitely unknown and that is why they open the subject to what is beyond his own reach. Otherness breaks the self enclosed "same" or "identical" and defines us as who are based on our relation with the other. Levinas goes as far as arguing that ethics precedes ontology. This means that our committed relationship with others comes before our awareness of our own physical existence.

Back to: introduction to Levinas

What is Phenomenology? 

 

Meaning of Onto-Theology Explained

Onto-theology is a term coined by Emmanuel Kant to designate theology as a metaphysics which exists independently of all experience. For Kant onto-theology is supposed to be a form of transcendental theology that does not understand God as part of human experiences, but rather relates to him through transcendental concepts and thinking.

While for Kant this term designates a speculative deduction of God based on his conception, Martin Heidegger saw onto-theology as the internal law of being and the origin of metaphysics. Heidegger uses this term to describe traditional metaphysics in terms of how it thinks of the highest being. The idea that a generally higher being or essence - be it God, the substance in Spinoza, the absolute in Hegel etc. - is necessary as a guarantor for the order of the world is referred to by Heidegger as an ontotheological form of metaphysics .

 

Definition of ontho-theology

Kant defines onto-theology as this transcendental rational theology which believes that it knows the existence of the original being by simple concepts, without recourse to experience.

With Heidegger, onto-theology becomes the observation of a structural duality of metaphysics. He argues that throughout the history of Western metaphysics being is understood as god's primary trait. Any question relating to the meaning of the word being immediately branches off towards the exposition of this duality. Forsaking the ontological reliance on theology is a way for phenomenology to go back to existence itself. 

 

Back to: What is Phenomenology