The expression of the flesh in Merleau-Ponty

Abstract

We propose an interpretation of the experience of expression of the body and the word in Merleau- Ponty's work from the notion of flesh (chair). In the sections: "The sense as flesh”, "Grammar of perception" and "The flesh of the word" we seek to consider this approach, with which we distance ourselves from the interpretations seen in Merleau-Ponty's work two opposite paths: A philosophy of perception and body, and the an ontology of the flesh. In the first section we stop at specifying the essentially reversible phenomenon of the ontological conception of the flesh as an element (élément). With the conception of perception as language, exposed in the second section, we show the phenomenon of the embodiment of meaning. In the third section we deal with understanding the power of expression of the word (parole) as a transmutation of the sense of perception in –the very– sense of the word, in its flesh.