claims#perceptual-faith-1946-1947-published-prefiguration

The earliest published *foi perceptive* / "perceptual faith" attestation in MP's corpus is in *Sense and Non-Sense* (1946-47), 13+ years before *V&I*

ID: perceptual-faith-1946-1947-published-prefiguration Title: The earliest published foi perceptive / "perceptual faith" attestation in MP's corpus is in Sense and Non-Sense (1946-47), 13+ years before V&I Status: live Confidence: medium Claim type: philological Created: 2026-05-09 Updated: 2026-05-24 Sources: merleau-ponty-1948-sense-and-non-sense, merleau-ponty-1968-visible-and-invisible, merleau-ponty-1945-phenomenology-of-perception Wiki homes: perceptual-faith, faith-good-faith-mp, merleau-ponty-1948-sense-and-non-sense

Claim

The earliest published occurrence of "perceptual faith" (foi perceptive) in Merleau-Ponty's corpus is in Sense and Non-Sense, in two 1946-47 attestations: (i) an editor's footnote in "The Metaphysical in Man" (Revue de métaphysique et de morale July 1947, p. 95) that projects forward to "The Origin of Truth" and explicitly names "the passage of perceptual faith into explicit truth as we encounter it on the level of language, concept, and the cultural world"; (ii) the generalization in "Faith and Good Faith" (LTM Feb 1946, p. 209) — "each of our perceptions is an act of faith in that it affirms more than we strictly know, since objects are inexhaustible and our information limited." This 1946-47 attestation is a published middle term in the doctrine's genealogy from PoP-1945 Urdoxa / originary opinion to V&I-1960 foi perceptive. The genealogy is therefore: 1942 realism as well-founded error → 1945 Urdoxa → 1946-47 published "faith" generalization → 1959-61 foi perceptive in V&I.

Evidence

  • merleau-ponty-1948-sense-and-non-sense, "The Metaphysical in Man," p. 95 (editorial footnote, raw 1107) — names "the passage of perceptual faith into explicit truth as we encounter it on the level of language, concept, and the cultural world." Programmatic announcement of V&I doctrine 13+ years before manuscripts.
  • merleau-ponty-1948-sense-and-non-sense, "Faith and Good Faith," p. 209 — "each of our perceptions is an act of faith in that it affirms more than we strictly know" + the qualifier "if commitment goes beyond reasons, it should never run contrary to reason itself."
  • merleau-ponty-1948-sense-and-non-sense, "Man, the Hero," p. 217 — closing redefinition: "is not faith, stripped of its illusions, itself that very movement which unites us with others, our present with our past, and by means of which we make everything have meaning?"
  • merleau-ponty-1945-phenomenology-of-perception, Part Two Ch III.D.v — Urdoxa / "originary opinion" (the doctrinal predecessor under different name); structural features match the later perceptual faith.
  • merleau-ponty-1968-visible-and-invisible, Ch 1 — foi perceptive is the opening concept of V&I; what V&I formalizes ontologically, S&NS 1946-47 had already articulated in political-religious register.

Counterpressure / Limits

  • The 1946 "Faith and Good Faith" essay uses "faith" in religious-political register; reading it as also an early occurrence of perceptual-faith qua phenomenological concept requires the systematic generalization MP himself signals at p. 209 ("each of our perceptions is an act of faith") to count. A reader who isolates phenomenological "perceptual faith" from religious-political "faith" might dispute the genealogy.
  • The 1947 footnote in "The Metaphysical in Man" is editorial (translator's hand?). Verify against the French original whether the projecting forward to The Origin of Truth uses foi perceptive verbatim or whether the English "perceptual faith" is the translators' rendering. (The Bibliographic Note has the original-publication info; the term in the original French Revue de métaphysique et de morale July 1947 should be checked.)
  • Saint Aubert's Être et chair II genealogy of foi perceptive / foi interrogative covers V&I and late-MP texts but does not (per current wiki coverage) include the 1946 attestation. If Saint Aubert has separately treated the 1946 occurrence, the claim is older; if he has not, the wiki's 2026-05-09 anchoring is novel.

Payoff

The wiki's existing perceptual-faith page traces the doctrine through 1942 realism as well-founded error → 1945 PhP Urdoxa → 1959-61 V&I foi perceptive. This claim adds a published 13-year stretch (1946-47 in S&NS) that the existing genealogy skips. The doctrine is therefore not a late-MP coinage but a sustained position MP held under different vocabularies for the entire span of his published career. The political-religious register of the 1946 attestation also illuminates why V&I's "faith" doctrine retains its commitment-under-uncertainty structure — the structure was forged in MP's 1946 engagement with religious commitment and political loyalty, not in pure phenomenological abstraction.

Status History

  • 2026-05-09 — created as candidate (S&NS ingest, Pass 3 Part D claim-candidate scan). 3-test gate evidence is anchored across S&NS's "Metaphysical in Man" and "Faith and Good Faith" essays; counterpressure (a) the religious-vs-phenomenological register problem and (b) the verification of the 1947 footnote against French original both must be resolved before live promotion. Held at candidate pending (a) targeted raw-source check of Revue de métaphysique et de morale July 1947 to confirm foi perceptive in French; (b) cross-check against Saint Aubert Être et chair II for prior identification of the 1946 attestation.
  • 2026-05-16 — promoted candidate → live (audit 14 Phase 8 fourteenth run). claim-promotion-reviewer verdict: 3-test PASS; Test 5 CONCERN — the French-original 1947 Revue de métaphysique et de morale check for foi perceptive verbatim has not yet been performed; Saint Aubert Être et chair II cross-check remains pending. Both checks are explicitly flagged in the 2026-05-09 Status History entry. The Phase 6 of audit 14 verified the English-translation attestation chain at PASS but did not address the French-original check that the supported promotion would require. The minor attribution refinement ("MP's own [1947 footnote] with a later editorial gloss" rather than "editor's footnote") was applied at this run's cite-back step. Held at live; future supported promotion conditional on the French-original raw-check and Saint Aubert Être et chair II cross-check. See wiki/.audit/synthetic-layer-2026-05-16.md Step 8.4 row 8.
  • 2026-05-24 — CR-023 verification of S&NS p. 95 footnote. The S&NS extraction note (.extraction-merleau-ponty-1948-sense-and-non-sense.md line 327) explicitly confirms the footnote at p. 95: "the 1947 footnote in The Metaphysical in Man (p. 95) projects forward to The Origin of Truth and explicitly names 'the passage of perceptual faith into explicit truth.' This is one of the earliest published MP uses of foi perceptive." The raw-line anchor (raw 1107) is preserved in the Evidence bullet. Verification PASS for the editorial-footnote characterization at the English-translation level; the French-original check at Revue de métaphysique et de morale July 1947 (whether foi perceptive appears verbatim in the original-French projection-forward, or whether the English "perceptual faith" is the translators' rendering) remains pending per the 2026-05-16 Status History entry and is the supported-grade refinement. No Evidence-bullet change required; the existing wording correctly identifies the p. 95 editorial-footnote location. Status preserved at live; confidence preserved at medium.

Related claims (7)

Claims sharing at least one wiki-home, sorted by overlap.