Bad Habit and Bad Faith: The Ambiguity of the Unconscious in the Early Merleau-Ponty

0507399 - FLÚ 2020 RIV RO eng J - Journal Article
Puc, Jan
Bad Habit and Bad Faith: The Ambiguity of the Unconscious in the Early Merleau-Ponty.
Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai. Philosophia. Roč. 64, č. 1 (2019), s. 7-20. E-ISSN 2065-9407
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA15-10832S
Institutional support: RVO:67985955
Keywords : The Unconscious * Phenomenology * Habit * Bad Faith * Corporeity
OECD category: Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology
Method of publishing: Open access
http://studia.ubbcluj.ro/arhiva/abstract_en.php?editie=PHILOSOPHIA&nr=1&an=2019&id_art=16655

Psychoanalysis had a profound influence on formation of Merleau-Ponty’s thought. However, at the same time, he rejects Freud’s idea that the unconscious consists of latent mental contents that cause a certain type of behavior. Instead of a hidden experience, Merleau-Ponty argues that the unconscious is an ambiguous consciousness. In The Structure of Behavior and The Phenomenology of Perception, he specifies this ambiguity by means of the concepts of habit, bad faith, bodily expression, affective intentionality and body schema. In this paper, I will present the interconnection of these aspects of the human existence, following Merleau-Ponty’s two early major works. Further, I will show the difference of Merleau-Ponty’s notion of bad faith from that of Sartre, and, finally, I will suggest a limitation of Merleau-Ponty’s approach to the unconscious.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0298391