Donation en chair (Leibhaftigkeit)

MP's reworking of Husserl's Leibhaftigkeit ("bodily givenness" — the presence en chair et en os of the thing in perception). Saint Aubert's Ch IV reconstructs MP's rewriting across two simultaneous accents: (a) tighter immanence — the thing is literally "en chair", given "dans sa chair", and "est chair" — and (b) heightened transcendence — the thing is never fully given, remains lacunaire and inépuisable, bordered by the invisible. These are not contradictions but the dialectical structure of the perceptive épreuve. The title inversion of Ch IV — de la donation en chair à la chair du don — names the move from unilateral thing-giving to reciprocal co-gift.

Key Points

  • MP's usage of Leibhaftigkeit is framed against Sartre, not directly through Husserl. The pre-1953 occurrences are few and indirect; the rétrospective début proper occurs at the opening of the first Collège de France lecture (MSME 46-47), with Sartre's L'Imaginaire as the silent polemical backdrop.
  • "Prendre à la lettre" la Leibhaftigkeit. MP takes Husserl's phrase literally: en chair means in flesh, not merely in person. The thing has a chair, which MP calls "la chair de la chose" (S(PhiOmb) 211).
  • But simultaneously: the thing is never entirely given. "Les choses perçues ne seraient pas pour nous irrécusables, présentes en chair et en os, si elles n'étaient inépuisables, jamais entièrement données" (PM 52). The thing is only present because it is in part absent.
  • This double accent is not a hesitation. Saint Aubert explicitly refutes the "hésitation" reading (a legitimate concern raised by E&C I ch IX's critique of the monisme de la chair): the two accents are complementary, responding to the very intention of MP's philosophy.
  • Self-critique of PhP. In the DESC notes on Gueroult (c. 1956-57), MP writes: "Ce qui manque à ma thèse : trop «positiviste» ; je n'ai pas assez marqué que le leibhaft de la perception est précisément en tant que tel absence, présentation latérale" (DESC 208).
  • Einfühlung plutôt que Erfüllung. MP's formula: perception operates by Einfühlung (empathy, flesh-in-with), not by Erfüllung (fulfillment of empty intentions). "La perception va bien au-delà de l'Erfüllung" (PbPassiv 153/NP). This is MP's most pointed correction of Husserl.

Details

The pre-1953 textual base

MP mentions Leibhaftigkeit only a few times before 1953 (PhP 369, Sorb(CAL) 39, PM 52), and in those mentions the phrase is filtered through Sartre's L'Imagination / L'Imaginaire rather than read directly in Husserl. The Phénoménologie de la perception registers the formula ("dans la perception la chose nous est donnée «en personne» ou «en chair et en os»", PhP 369) but does not yet develop its ontological weight.

1953: the retrospective turn

The first Collège de France lecture (22 January 1953) opens MP's mature treatment:

"La thèse d'un primat de la perception risquait de se trouver faussée (...) pour moi la perception était essentiellement un mode d'accès à l'être : l'accès au leibhaft gegeben. (...) Notre insuffisante élaboration (mais il faut bien commencer) risquait de fausser le rapport à l'être que nous avions en vue. Ce rapport est en réalité distant : la chose même n'est jamais prise par le philosophe : elle est la concrétion d'une expérience infinie, elle n'est donc pas possédée. Elle est incontestablement devant nous, mais comme quelque chose sur quoi on ne peut porter la main sans la perdre." (MSME 46-47/17-18)

Saint Aubert emphasizes this passage as the retrospective self-correction that structures all subsequent late-ontology work.

The DESC 208 self-critique

In notes taken on Gueroult's Descartes selon l'ordre des raisons (1953), probably c. 1956-57, MP writes on the margin opposite Gueroult's remark about Descartes's "satis clarae et distinctae":

"Dialectique du clair et de l'obscur : l'obscur en tant que tel conscience claire. Renversement dialectique : le clair n'est plus la plénitude mais au contraire il y a une clarté de ce qui n'est pas saisi. Ici le non-être devient ingrédient de l'être. Ce qui manque à ma thèse : trop «positiviste» ; je n'ai pas assez marqué que le leibhaft de la perception est précisément en tant que tel absence, présentation latérale." (DESC 208-[208]v(9))

Saint Aubert: this is MP's own most explicit self-critique, located in the Cartesian scenario, on a page about confusion and clarity. MP corrects PhP by importing the DESC renversement dialectique into the concept of Leibhaftigkeit itself. See also non-être ingrédient de l'être.

The two complementary accents

Accent 1 (immanence): "Prendre à la lettre" la donation. The thing is not merely given to my consciousness; it is given in its flesh, and my own body takes it as flesh. The perceived is contrepartie of the perceiver's incarnation, and perception is co-donation: "elle reflète ma propre incarnation et en est la contrepartie" (S(PhiOmb) 211).

Accent 2 (transcendance): The thing is given only as lacunaire, inépuisable, bordered by invisible. It remains ultra-chose. Leibhaft gegeben means given-in-flesh-while-never-fully-given. The "plénitude n'est visible que de loin" (PhiDial 13); the thing holds itself while letting itself be approached.

Together, the two accents yield the "chair du don" of Ch IV's title: the perceiver's flesh is the gift, and the thing's chair is also gift — co-given in the being that bears both.

Against Sartre

The 1959 Être et Monde sequence makes the Sartre polemic explicit: MP rejects the observabilité criterion of the real that he reads in Sartre's L'Imaginaire. "Distinction perçu-imaginaire n'est pas observable- inobservable" (PbPassiv 149/NP). Perception "prend" without being "complète". The Sartrean remplissement is replaced by a carnal coupling in which both sides contribute.

Critique of Husserl

Saint Aubert (Ch IV § 2) shows that MP's late turn is where MP most explicitly breaks with Husserl — though Saint Aubert emphasizes that the break is médié by the Sartre and Descartes scenarios. MP's "ce que je reproche à Husserl" (c. 1958-59) centers on: (a) the evidence-ideal of Erfüllung; (b) the méthode eidétique (addressed via Gurwitsch); (c) "le langage des esquisses" (also via Gurwitsch).

Gurwitsch's objections

MP's unpublished notes address Gurwitsch's objections to Husserlian Abschattungen. Saint Aubert (Ch IV § 2b-c) shows MP's engagement with Gurwitsch's 1955 and 1957 papers on the method. This engagement is largely invisible in the published MP and is recovered only through the archive.

Positions

  • Saint Aubert (E&C II Ch IV): the two accents are complementary, not hesitant; they realise MP's intention to write an ontology of the rapport charnel that is neither fusion nor separation.
  • E&C I ch IX (Saint Aubert's own earlier volume): raised the "monisme de la chair" concern, which the double-accent reading of E&C II definitively answers.
  • A Husserl-direct reading (Zahavi, others — not engaged by Saint Aubert): might preserve a legitimate Husserlian Leibhaftigkeit that does not need to be displaced by MP's correction; the Husserlian position may be less "positivist" than MP (filtered by Sartre) makes it.

Connections

  • critiques edmund-husserl's Leibhaftigkeit as positivisme phénoménologique — but retrospectively, and partly unfairly (Saint Aubert grants this). See claims#mp-flesh-not-husserl-leib (supported) — MP's chair lexicon does not translate Husserl's Leib; the en chair et en os attestations in the Husserl courses are the only chair-uses there, and they preserve Leibhaftigkeit's conventional French rendering rather than translating Leib.
  • critiques jean-paul-sartre's L'Imaginaire observabilité-criterion — this is the primary polemical stake.
  • amended by MP's own écart and imperception concepts — perception is écart and imperception "par définition".
  • paired with ultra-chose — the thing-side correlate: il faut que la chose soit ultra-chose pour être perçue.
  • develops non-être ingrédient de l'être — "le non-être devient ingrédient de l'être" (DESC 208).
  • foundational to prégnance (bifid) — the double- accented Leibhaftigkeit is extended in prégnance.
  • is a case of épreuve mutuelle.
  • replaces Husserl's Erfüllung with Einfühlung.

Open Questions

  • Does MP ever directly read Husserl on Leibhaftigkeit, or does Sartre stand between them throughout? Saint Aubert's reading suggests Sartre is always the filter; but the Philosophe et son ombre (1959) appears to engage Husserl more directly on this point.
  • Is the two-accent reading philosophically stable, or does it collapse under the pressure of its own dialectical commitment (immanence AND transcendance)? Saint Aubert insists it does not collapse; critics (early readers of V&I) worried it does.
  • After 1959 MP stops using "Leibhaft" entirely. What is lost — and what is kept — in the transition to pure vocabulary of "chair" and "prégnance"?

Sources