Convergence Thesis (MP)

Merleau-Ponty's methodological doctrine articulated in chapter 6 of *Child Psychology and Pedagogy* (1950–52): twentieth-century scientific psychology and abstract philosophy were born as opposed and thereby complicit; they have converged methodologically through the difficulties of their own problems. Contemporary psychology, "without knowing it, sometimes against itself," has been guided toward phenomenological positions. The convergence happens through four overcomings: subjective/objective antinomy; body/consciousness; individuality/generality; simple/complex (the Mill methodology). What is needed is what Husserl called regional ontologies — see claims#convergence-thesis-prefigures-lateral-universality.

Key Points

  • Born opposed, thereby complicit (CPP ch. 6 §III.A): "From its very origins, phenomenology emerged as an attempt to resolve the crises in philosophy, the human sciences, and science in general" (line 4218). The triple crisis (sciences, human sciences, philosophy) provoked by collapse of foundationalism around 1900, continuing in Husserl's 1935 Vienna lectures.
  • Husserl's middle way between psychologism and logicism. Suspends conditioning without denying it. Phenomenology is "the science of omni-temporality: an exploration of the very essence of temporality that makes no claims to overcome temporality" (line 4258).
  • The four overcomings (CPP ch. 6 §III.A):
    1. Subjective/objective antinomy.
    2. Body/consciousness.
    3. Individuality/generality (against the Aristotelian "only science is of the general").
    4. Simple/complex (Mill methodology).
  • Behaviorism and Gestalt as instructive failures:
    • Watson: starts as anti-physiology (placing the subject in the world) but reverts to reflexology and causal explanation. Tolman's molar/molecular distinction is the path Watson failed to take.
    • Koffka: geographical/behavioral setting distinction is essential — but Koffka's isomorphism slides back into substantialism that makes consciousness an epiphenomenon (CPP §III.C.1, lines 4666–4670).
  • Lewin: forces as constructa. Behavioral forces are not substances but constructa — relational structures requiring no ontological power. MP accepts this as a first step but pushes further: need motivation (in the second person, not the third), and behind it a medium — culture, "tools, instruments, and institutions" (line 4650).
  • Guillaume's relapse and the "third order". Paul Guillaume retreats to physical-method objectivism, "substituting the unity of the physical order for the plurality of experiences." The phenomenal is between immediate-lived (Bergsonian duration) and geographical (in-itself) — a third order (line 4716). What is needed is Husserl's regional ontologies: "we must not postulate the absolute value of a method or prematurely decide about the nature of psychic life" (line 4741).
  • Goldstein at the clinical limit: "there is no coincidence with the facts, whether it be external or internal, but a certain manner of interrogating the organism" (CPP ch. 6 §III.C.3, line 4806). Aphasia is "collapse of the dimension of speech from the categorical to the automatic level"; the patient has lost the function of projection, "the capacity to get one's bearings from the possible." Mechanism is "anthropomorphism" projected onto matter (line 4840).
  • Husserl's evolution as maturation, not reversal. From the Logical Investigations (eidetic/empirical separation) to Cartesian Meditations + Crisis (genetic phenomenology, sedimented history, lebendige Gegenwart, "reason in history"). "Husserl's evolution isn't just a changing of mind... his evolution is best described as a maturation" (line 4456). The late phase is the destination, not a deviation.

What the Concept Does

The convergence thesis performs the philosophical work of:

  • Refusing methodological monism. Against ontological reduction in either direction (psychology to physiology, philosophy to psychology). Both phenomenology and contemporary psychology must develop regional ontologies without absorbing each other.
  • Reading psychology intentionally rather than registering its self-presentation. "By reading psychology by its spontaneous development, rather than its explicit statements, MP reveals convergence."
  • Setting up the methodological architecture for *Nature* (which performs the same operation on phenomenology and animal physiology), *Signs*'s lateral universality (which performs it on phenomenology and ethnology), and *In Praise of Philosophy*'s "philosophy is in everything" claim.
  • Authorizing MP's appropriation of the human-sciences corpus (Mead, Kardiner, Mauss, Lévi-Strauss, Lewin, Goldstein, Wallon, Klein) without forcing them into a phenomenological mold.

What It Rejects

  • School phenomenology (closed-circle reading of phenomenological texts): "never have phenomenology and psychology been further from understanding each other" than in school-phenomenology mode.
  • History-of-philosophy phenomenology (registration-style classification of texts): pretends to objectivity, merely classifies.
  • Heidegger's "absolute power of philosophy": "Heidegger claims a priority for philosophy in relation to psychology, while Husserl, as we have seen, tends to replace this relation of dependence with a relation of reciprocal envelopment" (CPP ch. 6 §II.E, line 4476). The human sciences are not "purely and simply subordinated to philosophy."
  • Scheler's eternal essences (too detached from time / history).
  • Reductive ontological monism in either direction.

Stakes

If accepted, the convergence thesis:

  • Reframes the relation between phenomenology and the human sciences as reciprocal envelopment, not subordination.
  • Authorizes regional-ontologies: each field must develop its proper concepts and methods, neither reducing to nor being reduced by neighboring fields.
  • Underwrites institution (1954–55): the Sorbonne convergence-thesis is the methodological precondition for the institution-ontology, which extends the operation to history.
  • Anticipates lateral universality of *Signs*: the "Signs Introduction" reads phenomenology and ethnology as converging without one absorbing the other.
  • Anticipates the philosophy-of-biology of *Nature*: the same convergence-operation at higher voltage.

Problem-Space

The problem this concept addresses: how can phenomenology and the empirical human sciences inform each other without one reducing to the other? The reductive answers (philosophical foundationalism, methodological positivism, neutral-monism) all collapse the distinction. MP's third way: regional ontologies with reciprocal envelopment — each field develops what is proper to it, but they converge methodologically because they are working on the same difficulties. Same problem-space governs the institution concept (philosophy and history), lateral universality (philosophy and ethnology), and the philosophy-of-biology of *Nature* (philosophy and biology).

Connections

Open Questions

  • Does the convergence thesis in 1950–52 already anticipate the regional ontologies of *Nature* (1956–60)? Phase 8 work needed.
  • How does the convergence-thesis relate to the reciprocal-envelopment principle? They appear to be the same idea at different scales — convergence at the methodological-disciplinary level; reciprocal envelopment at the philosophical-conceptual level.
  • Is the convergence-thesis contestable? Heidegger would deny the convergence (philosophy must remain in priority); structural sociology (Lévi-Strauss) implicitly denies it (objectivism for sociology). The thesis is robust if we accept regional ontologies — but that's precisely what the thesis tries to establish.

Synthetic Claims

  • candidate claim, see claims#convergence-thesis-prefigures-lateral-universality — the Sorbonne 1949–52 convergence-thesis is the methodological seed of which lateral universality (1956–60), the philosophy-of-biology of the Nature lectures (1956–60), and "philosophy is in everything" (1953 inaugural) are cross-disciplinary extensions. The 1949–52 → 1953 → 1956–60 → 1960 chain runs from psychology through biology to ethnology and the history of philosophy. This page is named wiki home for the candidate claim. Held at candidate because the genealogical chain requires sustained cross-source reading to confirm doctrinal continuity; the universality (lateral) / methodology (convergence) axis-difference between the 1949–52 and 1956–60 articulations is real and may be flattened by the precursor reading.

Sources