Merleau-Ponty, Perception, Corporeality

Whereas Sartre seems unsettled as to whether or not Consciousness is embodied, Merleau-Ponty unequivocally affirms that the subject of perception is bodily, and that the body is the center of motile action. Yet, he also asserts that "the theory of the body is already a theory of perception". Hence, he believes that perception, even presumably incarnated, still precedes, in some respect, bodily movement. So, while effectively distinguishing his view from Cartesian dualism, he, nevertheless, continues the methodological privileging, implicit in Phenomenology and Intentionality, of Consciousness with respect to its objects, including to one's own corporeal motility. But, that privileging presupposes that his method is not itself a mode of action, which seems difficult to defend. For, the Phenomenological method does not consist in the sheerly passive reception of phenomenal data, but, as Merleau-Ponty himself insists, it is a descriptive procedure, and, even when it is merely private, description is a mode of action. So, what Merleau-Ponty's effort does achieve is to underscore that the only conclusively corporeal concept of Consciousness is one that has it implicated in bodily motility.