Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty by Andrew T Kirkpatrick

Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty by Andrew T Kirkpatrick

sets out to answer a simple question: "What kind of phenomenologist is Merleau-Ponty?" While debates regarding the status of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology typically fall along transcendental or existential lines, author Andrew Kirkpatrick shows how Merleau-Ponty's thought fails to fit neatly within either category. Drawing on Whitehead's process metaphysics, he demonstrates how Merleau-Ponty's thought transcends the limitations of both transcendental and existential descriptions and results in a new style of phenomenology altogether: a process phenomenology. More than just a Whiteheadian reading of Merleau-Ponty, this is a synthesis that also offers novel insights into Whiteheadian thought. It is in this sense that the question "What kind of phenomenologist was Merleau-Ponty?" also results in a novel interpretation of Whitehead. In uniting Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological description of lived experience with Whitehead's process metaphysics, a process phenomenology ultimately enlarges the philosophical dictionary. It does so by providing the method, vocabulary, and conceptual means through which we can embody, describe, and live out a process of process metaphysics of everyday life.

Andrew Kirkpatrick is an independent scholar who has taught at both Swinburne University of Technology and Deakin University.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9798855809442
Title	Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty
Author	Andrew T Kirkpatrick
Series	Suny Series In American Philosophy And Cultural Thought
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	State University of New York Press
Year published	2026-10-01
Number of pages	288
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.