Merleau-Ponty on alterity and expression: contributions to psychology

Abstract

The study of alterity each day rises as more relevant to Psychology, in its contemporary theories. In that path, the future research aims to investigate a topic in the work of Merleau-Ponty that is pertinent to this theme: to analyze how is possible the perception of alterity regarding expression, and more specifically, examining the understanding of the other's singularity in relation to and individualized in their sociocultural environment. To accomplish that, it will be traced a path in the author's work following the conducting line of alterity and language as possibility of expression and communication, at the same time vehicle for intersubjectivity and a cultural code. By reading texts of the "first" Merleau-Ponty and his period of transition, and with the aid of commentators, we look forward to investigate the theme in two moments. In the first moment, the subject and the opening to the relation with the other, exploring the problem of intersubjectivity in the merleau-pontyian critique towards the history of philosophy. In the second moment, the space that this critique opens in the investigation of alterity in an existencial and social context, touching, then, relevant issues to Psychology. We will make use, as well, of the dialogues of the philosopher with the other human sciences, mainly Linguistics and Anthropology, examining, with that, the ways of understanding alterity. During the research, we intend to salient the intention of Merleau-Ponty in abandoning the traditional dichotomies in the fields of Philosophy and Psychology, emphasizing his conception of embodied subject. In a second plan, we intend to understand, regarding the proposed theme, ways of interlocution between these two fields of knowledge in the author's thinking.