Strange Sounds: Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Dialectic

dc.contributor.authorWolff, Greg
dc.contributor.programBachelor's Degreeen_US
dc.date.accessioned2016-04-25T21:05:47Z
dc.date.available2016-04-25T21:05:47Z
dc.date.issued2005
dc.description.abstractWhen I was a freshman in high school I became depressed, feeling disconnected from reality as a whole. Noticing this change, my understandably concerned mother suggested that I talk to a psychologist. I remember feeling that I did not need a psychologist—I needed to talk to a philosopher. I was unsure as to how rational thought could justify believing in a world beyond sense perception, a concern that led to indifference and confusion. The questions this paper addresses are very personal ones; concerns that still hold my attention and continue to bewilder me. what is the right dosage of levitraen_US
dc.description.sponsorshipFrom John Rose: Greg Wolff’s article, “Strange Sounds: Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Dialectic,” tackles head-on the problem of whether an individual’s consciousness of another can ever reach the perspective of another person. In short, the fundamental question that motivates his philosophizing is, “Can we ever genuinely reach the other person?” In the best methodological tradition of contemporary, continental philosophy, Mr. Wolff begins with the point of friction between two recent French thinkers who have already tackled the topic: Emmanuel Levinas and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Those unfamiliar with this method of working through philosophical texts in pursuit of one’s own reflective questions should note the compelling and lucid way in which Wolff focuses his reader’s attention on the juxtaposition of these two philosopher’s on his article’s thesis. However, one must not think that Wolff’s rigorous and focused reading of the text is the sole reason for its worthiness. Mr. Wolff takes the discussions of these philosophers further in terms of his own experiences with the topic. Citing his own concerns with solipsism—the philosophical version of narcissism in which one believes that oneself is the only existing thing—Wolff explores his own sense for the points of contact with the truly otherness of the other person: in music, in language, in art, and in personal relationships. As it should be, Wolff’s article becomes an example of the relationship to the Other that he explores in his philosophical reflections. The philosophers themselves become the Other whom Wolff reaches as he transcends his own perspective. In putting his own questions to the others, Mr. Wolff reaches them, not as lifeless precursors and concepts, but as others who reach the experience of the Other.en_US
dc.description.urihttp://blogs.goucher.edu/verge/verge-1/en_US
dc.format.extent12 p.en_US
dc.genrejournal articlesen_US
dc.genreresearch articlesen_US
dc.identifierdoi:10.13016/M2TJ44
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11603/2798
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.relation.isAvailableAtGoucher College, Baltimore, MD
dc.rightsCollection may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. To obtain information or permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Goucher Special Collections & Archives at 410-337-6347 or email archives@goucher.edu.
dc.subjectResearch -- Periodicals.en_US
dc.titleStrange Sounds: Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Dialecticen_US
dc.typeTexten_US

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