BODY AND EXISTENCE IN M. MERLEAU-PONTY'S PHENOMENOLOGY OF PERCEPTION

In this paper, the author analyses the phenomenological descriptions of the body and existence which Merleau-Ponty expounds in his Phenomenology of Perception. The initial philosophical assumption for these descriptions is Merleau-Ponty's stance on the essential difference between the phenomenological and the scientific approach to the human body as well as man's attitude towards the world in which he is living. Arising from this distinction is a different way of man's self-realization and self-understanding, that is, his existence, which is the focal point of the final part of this paper.