Possibility of Philosophy

The problem-space organizing Merleau-Ponty's late thought (1959–61): given the diagnosed condition of nonphilosophy — the destruction of classical philosophy combined with the emergence of genuine philosophical insight in art, literature, music, and psychoanalysis — what becomes of philosophy itself? The 1959 Collège course "The Possibility of Philosophy Today" (published 2022) and the 1960–61 course "Philosophy and Non-Philosophy since Hegel" articulate the question as a structural thesis: philosophy is possible only as the theory of its own relation to nonphilosophy. Per the live claim claims#hyper-dialectic-as-philosophy-non-philosophy-theory (live), this means hyper-dialectic is the proper philosophical form of that relation.

Key Points

  • The 1959 course thesis (per merleau-ponty-2022-possibility-of-philosophy): "this decadence of philosophy is inessential" (line 215). What is dying is a particular mode of philosophizing, not philosophy itself.
  • The 1960–61 course extension: "Philosophy and Non-Philosophy since Hegel" — the post-Hegelian condition is that "the great works along this path [Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche] are too preoccupied with the struggle against Hegel and classical metaphysics... to permit us to see clearly what remains of philosophy in these non-philosophies" (merleau-ponty-1970-in-praise-of-philosophy Course 10, pp. 174–180).
  • A-philosophy as the radicalized form: "true philosophy mocks philosophy, is a-philosophy" (merleau-ponty-2022-possibility-of-philosophy line 1507). See a-philosophy-mp.
  • The Chouraqui reading (chouraqui-2016-order-of-the-earth §4 pp. 67–69): the possibility-of-philosophy question is answered by recuperation — philosophy finds room for itself "within the structure of being" by admitting a non-philosophical outside that is also already its inside.
  • Connection to hyper-dialectic: per the live claim claims#hyper-dialectic-as-philosophy-non-philosophy-theory, hyper-dialectic is not just an ontological position but the theory of the relation between philosophy and non-philosophy.

What the Concept Does

The concept performs a meta-philosophical function: it makes philosophy's relation to its own outside (art, literature, science, the "crises" of mid-twentieth-century rationality) into the internal structural question of late MP's thought. Without this concept, MP's interest in painting, cinema, literature, psychoanalysis, and political crisis looks like application; with it, those interests are constitutive of what philosophy now is.

What It Rejects

The concept rejects: (1) the view that philosophy can proceed as if unaffected by the post-Hegelian "anti-philosophies" (Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche); (2) the view that philosophy's renewal comes by return (to ancient metaphysics, to Husserlian Ursprungsklärung); (3) the view that crisis means death — MP insists the decadence is inessential.

Connections

Open Questions

  • Distinction between possibility-of-philosophy as a concept and as the title of the 1959 course. This page treats it as a problem-space concept that the course names; the title-as-such is the source page merleau-ponty-2022-possibility-of-philosophy.
  • Whether MP held a stable answer to the question or was, in 1959–61, still working it out — the candidate-status entries in claims.md around this problem-space leave the question open.

Sources