The Birth of Sense. Don Beith

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      The Birth of Sense

      SERIES IN CONTINENTAL THOUGHT

      Editorial Board

      Ted Toadvine, Chairman, University of Oregon

      Michael Barber, Saint Louis University

      Elizabeth A. Behnke, Study Project in Phenomenology of the Body

      David Carr, Emory University

      James Dodd, New School University

      Lester Embree, Florida Atlantic University†

      Sara Heinämaa, University of Jyväskylä, University of Helsinki

      José Huertas-Jourda, Wilfrid Laurier University†

      Joseph J. Kockelmans, Pennsylvania State University†

      William R. McKenna, Miami University

      Algis Mickunas, Ohio University

      J. N. Mohanty, Temple University

      Dermot Moran, University College Dublin

      Thomas Nenon, University of Memphis

      Rosemary Rizo-Patron de Lerner, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima

      Thomas M. Seebohm, Johannes Gutenberg Universität, Mainz†

      Gail Soffer, Rome, Italy

      Elizabeth Ströker, Universität Köln†

      Nicolas de Warren, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

      Richard M. Zaner, Vanderbilt University

      International Advisory Board

      Suzanne Bachelard, Université de Paris†

      Rudolf Boehm, Rijksuniversiteit Gent

      Albert Borgmann, University of Montana

      Amedeo Giorgi, Saybrook Institute

      Richard Grathoff, Universität Bielefeld

      Samuel Ijsseling, Husserl-Archief te Leuven

      Alphonso Lingis, Pennsylvania State University

      Werner Marx, Albert-Ludwigs Universität, Freiburg†

      David Rasmussen, Boston College

      John Sallis, Boston College John Scanlon, Duquesne University

      Hugh J. Silverman, State University of New York, Stony Brook†

      Carlo Sini, Università di Milano

      Jacques Taminiaux, Louvain-la-Neuve

      D. Lawrence Wieder†

      Dallas Willard, University of Southern California†

      The Birth of Sense

      Generative Passivity in Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy

      Don Beith

      OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS

      ATHENS

      Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701

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       Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Beith, Don, author.

      Title: The birth of sense : generative passivity in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy / Don Beith.

      Description: Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press, 2018. | Series: Series in Continental thought ; No. 52 | Includes bibliographical references and index.

      Identifiers: LCCN 2018000072 | ISBN 9780821423103 (hc : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780821446263 (pdf)

      Subjects: LCSH: Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 1908-1961.

      Classification: LCC B2430.M3764 B45 2018 | DDC 194—dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018000072

       Dedicated to an especial teacher, authentic friend, and generative philosopher: John Russon

      Rhythm and melody supply imitations of anger and gentleness, and also of courage and temperance, and of all the qualities contrary to these, and of the other qualities of character, which hardly fall short of the actual affections, as we know from our own experience, for in listening to such strains our souls undergo a change. . . . There seems to be in us a sort of affinity to musical modes and rhythms, which makes some philosophers say that the soul is a harmony.

      —Aristotle, Politics 8

      Nature loves to hide.

      —Heraclitus, Fragment 123

      All action is an invasion of the future, of the unknown.

      —John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct

      Birth [is not an act] of constitution but the institution of a future. Reciprocally, institution resides in the same genus of Being as birth and is not, any more than birth, an act: there will be later decisionary institutions or contracts, but they are to be understood on the basis of birth and not the reverse.

      Therefore [there is an] instituted and instituting subject, but inseparably, and not a constituting subject; [therefore] a certain inertia—[the fact of being] exposed to . . . —but [this is what] puts an activity en route, an event, the initiation of the present, which is productive after it—Goethe: genius [is] “posthumous productivity”—which opens a future.

      The subject [is] that to which such orders of events can advent, field of fields.

      —Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Institution

      CONTENTS

       Acknowledgments

       Abbreviations

       Introduction. In the Shadow of Philosophy: The Problem of Passivity in the Philosophy of Merleau-Ponty

       Reading Merleau-Ponty

       Three Concepts of Passivity

       Summary of Chapters

       Between Husserl and Merleau-Ponty: The Inversion of Phenomenology

       1. Consciousness and Animality: The Problem of Constituting Activity in The Structure of Behavior

       Consciousness and the Problem