Merleau-Ponty and the Heritage of the Hegelian Dialectic

Abstract

As it gained expression in Hegel’s work, the dialectic went on to have a decisive repercussion in the contemporary debate. An example is its reception in the phenomenological tradition created by Husserl in the work of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. My purpose here is to make a summary balance of that conceptual heritage in the hands of the latter author. Starting from the Hegelian matrix, situating its range and its limits, this essay seeks to present the Merleau-Pontyan inflection on the notion of the “hyperdialectical”, i.e., “dialectics without synthesis”. What Merleau-Ponty portrays is acknowledgment in the dialectic of a “self-critical” attitude in the sense that it can be neither “being for itself” nor “being itself”. Its “hyper” dimension enormously accentuates a move to “go beyond” and “transcend” all rigid polarity, that is, to deconstruct every positive final synthesis indifferent to the ambiguous meaning of experience and history in the heart of contingency.