The Influence of Psychoanalysis on Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy and the Pulsional Body in the Gaming Experience

In this essay, we address the influence of psychoanalysis on Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of the esthesiological body. Our analyses are about the relation of senses and meanings established among the notions of game, sport and ludic, dialoguing with esthesiology and with the pulsional body, based on Freud's psychoanalytic referential, also approached by Merleau-Ponty. Our interlocutor considers that the expression of play in language seeks to situate the body, perception, and desire as primordial sources in the process of signification, presenting a different way of conceiving the problem of ambiguity of the word game, based on a lacunar, indirect, and nascent conception of language. Merleau-Ponty's philosophy beckons to an alternative and possible path in the movement of re-reading the game and the ludic, including the dialogue with Psychoanalysis concerning the relations of the pulsional body with the game and the play in shaping the feeling of existence, and broadening the horizons of the philosophy of sport.