Conflict and imaginary: an approximation of the notions of institution and politics in Merleau-Pontys thought

Abstract

During the first period of our post-doctoral research we were able to show how the notions of conflict and imaginary in Merleau-Ponty's political phenomena elaboration became co-dependents though his reading of Machiavelli. However, we cannot yet understand some problems that result from this new reconfiguration.Indeed, what conception of imaginary does Merleau-Ponty elaborate in this specific period of his work - the so called "intermediary" - that permits something like a "political imaginary"? On the other side, how must we think the idea of conflict inside a thought that is almost unanimously considered as a thought of the in-between? Our project intends to elaborate these questions from the following hypotheses: 1) the problem of the imaginary configured in this period of Merleau-Ponty's thought is the same that will later - in the so called last Merleau-Ponty - become the notion of symbolism and, simultaneously, of intersubjectivity. 2) the problem of the conflict, to be understood, must be thought according to how Merlau-Ponty thinks the model of the psychic conflict in his psychoanalytical works. (AU)