Verflechtung

Husserl's term (verflochten, "interwoven") from "The Origin of Geometry" (HUA 370), adopted by Merleau-Ponty in his 1959–60 course notes as naming the triadic interweaving of man, world, and language — "a thick identity which truly contains difference" (BN 25). Verflechtung articulates the chiasm specifically in the domain of history, language, and ideality. It names neither a causal relation nor a constitutive hierarchy but a circularity: "to go in one direction is truly to go in the other" (BN 25).

Key Points

  • Husserl's passage: "humans as humans, fellow humans, world — and, on the other hand, language, are inseparably interwoven [verflochten]" (HUA 370). MP comments: "True Husserlian thought" (BN 25).
  • The interweaving is triadic — man, world, language — not dyadic like the chiasm's sensing/sensed crossing.
  • The relations are not unidirectional (noesis→noema): "Circularity of Heraclitus, yes: to go in one direction is truly to go in the other" (BN 25). This circularity is "the most correct expression" of phenomenological correlation (BN 24).
  • Verflechtung is the structure through which ideality emerges "at the edge of speech" — neither inside consciousness nor in a Platonic heaven, but at "the hinge of the connection between me and others" (BN 12).
  • Lawlor proposes that the Verflechtung thesis addresses the "most difficult point" left incomplete in V&I Ch. 4 — the bond between flesh and idea.

Details

The Interweaving as Non-Causal Circularity

MP resists any reading that assigns priority to one of the three terms. Language "belongs to" the horizon of humanity (gehört zu dem Menschheitshorizont), but humanity is equally "grasped as" a community of language. Neither is first:

"The very fact that language and humanity can both be first and second and based in essence and based in existence shows that what is at issue is not this cleavage." (BN 25)

This leads MP to reject the noesis-noema framework: "the centrifugal-constituting determination is circularity. The Beziehen [connection] is reciprocal. Verflochten" (BN 24). The interweaving forms a Beziehungseinheit (relational unity, HUA 370) — references that are "in principle linear" form a unity that is "simultaneous" (BN 25).

Writing and the Constitution of Ideality

Verflechtung is not merely a descriptive observation but names the process by which ideality is constituted. Through the three stages — Erzeugung (production), Nachverstehen (reunderstanding in speech), and Dokumentierung (writing-down) — sense achieves permanence as "virtual communication." The written (grimoire) is "the visible figure of the very principle of Speech as being coextensive with Being" (BN 43). Sedimentation through writing is not a degradation of sense but its realization: "sedimentation, forgetfulness, is not a defect of ideality: it is constitutive of ideality" (BN 40).

Genealogy: From Verflechtung to Chiasm

The concept is genealogically connected to MP's chiasm but operates in a distinct register. Where the chiasm names the reversibility of sensing and sensed (the ontological structure of flesh), Verflechtung names the inseparability of man, world, and language (the historical-linguistic structure through which ideality emerges). Lawlor explicitly identifies Verflechtung as what the chiasm is in the domain of history and writing: "the chiasm Verflechtung, or interweaving, of the visible and the invisible" (Foreword). The Husserlian provenance means Verflechtung retains a connection to constitution and genesis that the more ontological "chiasm" tends to leave behind.

Connections

  • articulates chiasm in the domain of history, language, and ideality — where chiasm names sensing/sensed reversibility, Verflechtung names the man-world-language interweaving
  • extends ineinander — both name mutual inherence, but Verflechtung specifically includes the role of language and writing
  • grounds sedimentation — the interweaving explains how sedimentation is constitutive rather than defective
  • is the structural form of institution — the Urstiftung-Nachstiftung-Endstiftung triad operates through Verflechtung
  • presupposes speaking-spoken-speech — the distinction between operative and ready-made language is internal to the interweaving
  • contrasts with philosophy-of-reflection — reflection presupposes the "philosophical immanence" that Verflechtung replaces with circularity

Open Questions

  • Does the Husserlian provenance of Verflechtung limit it to the constitution of ideal objects (geometry, science), or does MP intend it as a universal ontological structure? The course notes apply it to geometry, but the Resumé and the Connections to V&I suggest the wider scope.
  • How does Verflechtung relate to Derrida's différance? Lawlor proposes continuity (both derive from the experience of intersubjectivity) and difference (formless content in MP vs. contentless form in Derrida). But MP himself does not mention Derrida.

Sources