claims#mp-1955-three-coordinated-mutations

1955 produces three coordinated terminological mutations in MP that together respond to Lachièze-Rey and Alquié objections

ID: mp-1955-three-coordinated-mutations Title: 1955 produces three coordinated terminological mutations in MP that together respond to Lachièze-Rey and Alquié objections Status: live Confidence: medium Claim type: philological / structural-parallel Created: 2026-05-05 Updated: 2026-05-05 Sources: saintaubert-2006-vers-une-ontologie-indirecte, merleau-ponty-2010-institution-and-passivity Wiki homes: institution, indirect-ontology

Claim

In 1955 MP produces three coordinated (not coincidental) terminological mutations that together respond to the Lachièze-Rey and Alquié objections from 1948–49: (i) "primat de la perception" → "priorité ontologique" (in the Problème de la passivité course); (ii) first declared name "ontologie du monde perçu" (in Résumés de cours 1955); (iii) the protest "ce que je fais n'est pas une anthropologie mais une ontologie" enters MP's litany (notes from late 1958 through March 1961). All three are explicit responses to Lachièze-Rey's Aristotelian-finalist-pantheist reading and to Alquié's Fontaine "philosophie de l'ambiguïté" article. The standard reading that dates MP's late ontology to the 1957 Nature course alone misses the 1955 cardinal year.

Evidence

• saintaubert-2006-vers-une-ontologie-indirecte — Ch. I §1c, raw lines 623–664. The cardinal terminological mutations of 1955: "Tous nos concepts sont anthropocentriques" (note inédite 1958–59, raw 667); "Le sujet percevant, l'univers de la perception, quand il est vraiment pris pour premier, n'est pas un univers 'anthropologique' à la surface de l'en soi inconnaissable" (note inédite 1958, raw 681); "Ce que je proposais, différent de Ruyer, et que Lachièze-Rey ne voit pas c'est: priorité ontologique du monde perçu (et du corps phénoménal) i.e. tout l'être qui a sens pour nous est à concevoir d'après monde perçu" (PbPassiv 1955, raw 627). Anchor: extraction-note Pass 2a Argument 2.
• saintaubert-2006-vers-une-ontologie-indirecte — Ch. I §1c, raw line 627. The PbPassiv (1955) explicitly answers Lachièze-Rey ("priorité ontologique du monde perçu... tout l'être qui a sens pour nous est à concevoir d'après monde perçu") and Alquié; the Philosophe et son ombre (achieved end-1958) and the V&I working notes carry the new vocabulary forward.
• saintaubert-2006-vers-une-ontologie-indirecte — Ch. I §1, raw lines 547–664. The four-objection structure that motivates the mutations: Hyppolite at SFP discussion (PPCP 23 Nov 1946); Beaufret at the same session ("not radical enough"); Lachièze-Rey 1948–55 (Aristotelian-finalist-pantheist); Alquié Fontaine 1948–49 (crypto-idealist, "philosophie de l'ambiguïté"). MP "ruminates" through 1953 (Le monde sensible et le monde de l'expression), 1955 (Le problème de la passivité), and into the V&I working notes. Anchor: extraction-note Pass 2a Argument 1.
• merleau-ponty-2010-institution-and-passivity — the institution course (1954–55) operates within the same 1955 register. The PbPassiv-cours and the I&P-cours are the same period of MP's working life; the institution-concept and the priorité ontologique formulation share the moment when MP-the-mature-late-ontologist first articulates his position systematically against the post-1948 critics.

Counterpressure / Limits

• Single-source dependency. The "three coordinated mutations" framing is Saint Aubert's reconstruction; the wiki has no other secondary source that articulates the exact triad. A reader could argue that the three mutations are loosely coordinated rather than tightly coordinated — that "priorité ontologique," "ontologie du monde perçu," and "pas une anthropologie mais une ontologie" are stages of a single drift rather than three coordinated moves.
• Two of the three mutations are documented in unpublished notes. "Pas une anthropologie mais une ontologie" appears in notes from late 1958 to March 1961 (not in published works); "priorité ontologique" appears in the PbPassiv course (published in Résumés de cours but the original course materials require BNF access). Saint Aubert's archival anchors are not in raw/; the mutations claim can be cited but not independently verified within the audit.
• The dating-to-1957 alternative reading is not unanimously dominant. Lefort's editorial work on MP places the late ontology emergence in 1957 (the first Nature course); other readings place it in 1959 (the V&I drafts). Saint Aubert's 1955-cardinal reading is a corrective but not the only date-revision proposal.

Payoff

The claim re-dates the emergence of MP's late ontology to 1955 — earlier than the 1957 Nature-course dating that dominates secondary literature. This pushes back the period of MP's "late" thought and clarifies what is new in the 1955 Institution course (per claims#institution-as-middle-term-1953-55): not just an institution-concept but a coordinated ontological-vocabulary shift that responds to specific 1948–49 critics. It also explains why the anthropologisme / anthropologie distinction (per claims#anthropologisme-vs-anthropologie-distinction live, this run) becomes load-bearing: MP's "ce que je fais n'est pas une anthropologie mais une ontologie" is not a generic ontological commitment but a specific response to Lachièze-Rey and Alquié, where "anthropologie" in the sentence refers to the anthropologisme MP rejects (Brunschvicg-Sartre extension) rather than to the empirical discipline MP praises (Lévi-Strauss).

Status History

• 2026-05-05 — created at live (Phase 8 ninth run) after the saintaubert-2006-vers-une-ontologie-indirecte ingest. The 3-test gate passes: (1) the three-coordinated-mutations claim is contestable against the dating-to-1957 reading and against the loose-coordination reading; (2) anchored in SA-2006 Pass 2a Arguments 1–2 with raw-line references for each of the three mutations and for the four-objection motivation; (3) Counterpressure documents single-source dependency, unpublished-notes anchoring, and the dating alternatives. Promotion to supported would require corroboration from secondary sources outside Saint Aubert (Dalissier's editorial work on the late MP archive, or further targeted ingests of Lachièze-Rey's 1948–55 publications) and direct access to the BNF feuillets.

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