Wesen (Verbal Sense, MP's Reading)

In late Merleau-Ponty, Wesen is read verbally rather than substantively: not the whatness of a thing opposed to its thatness, but the active happening by which a thing is that thing — "the Wesen of the table is 'that which "tablefies" in it'" (VI 175), the "roseness extending itself throughout the rose" (VI 174), the "being-rose of the rose" answering was and dass together. Morin (Ch 7 §1–§2, pp. 158–62) reads this as MP's reappropriation of Husserl's Wesenserschau through Heidegger's verbal Wesen — a move that "undoes the whatness/thatness opposition without returning to facticity-against-essence." This verbal Wesen is categorially distinct from Hegel's *Wesen* (the Reflexionsbestimmung of WdL Book 2): MP's Wesen is a participle-register operation, an Ineinander "which nobody sees" but is urpräsentiert as nichturpräsentierbar (VI 174); Hegel's is a categorial moment of objective-logical reflection.

Key Points

Verbal, not substantive. MP's Wesen names the tablefying of the table, the roseing of the rose — an active reflexive happening, not a noun-form whatness. This distinguishes it categorially from Hegel's *Wesen* (substantive: essence as Reflexionsbestimmung).
Tablefying / roseness (VI 174–175). The two anchor formulations: "the Wesen of the table is 'that which tablefies in it'" (VI 175); "the roseness extending itself throughout the rose" (VI 174). Both answer was and dass together — the verbal register collapses the whatness/thatness opposition that Husserlian Wesenserschau had presupposed.
Wesen is the Ineinander. The verbal Wesen is identified with the *Ineinander* "which nobody sees" but is urpräsentiert as nichturpräsentierbar (VI 174). The verbal-essence formulation and the Ineinander formulation name the same ontological structure under different aspects.
Facticity as fabric of essences (VI 119). "Facticity is 'the fabric that gives our essences their solidity,' and ideas are 'the nervure that bears the leaf from within'" (VI 119, cited Morin Ch 7 p. 161–62). Verbal Wesen undoes essence-against-facticity without collapsing into facticity-against-essence.
Husserl through Heidegger. Morin's frame (Ch 7 §1 p. 161): MP "reappropriates Husserl's Wesenserschau by inflecting it through Heidegger's verbal Wesen." Neither a pure Husserlian Wesenserschau (essence by imaginary variation, detached from facticity) nor a pure Heideggerian abandonment of Husserl — but a lateral synthesis.
Not a wiki page yet: Wesenserschau. The Husserlian term is referenced in prose because no dedicated concept page exists; treat as a stub-worthy candidate for a future ingest.

Details

The Heidegger-Husserl-MP synthesis

Morin (Ch 7 §1, pp. 158–61; §2, pp. 161–62) reconstructs the verbal-Wesen reading as MP's third path between two unsatisfactory alternatives. A pure Husserlian Wesenserschau treats essence as what survives imaginary variation — abstracted from facticity, surveyed "all naked" by the inspectio mentis. MP rejects this whole optics ("objective thought," Cartesian-Husserlian). A pure Heideggerian move would skip Husserl entirely and turn to Ereignis. MP does neither: he keeps Husserl's Wesenserschau as the question of essence-disclosure, but reads Wesen itself verbally, after the late Heidegger's recovery of the participial wesen (the verb under the noun). The result is essences seen between variants ("blueness" is nothing without surrounding shades), not abstracted from them — which is also why facticity, far from being essence's contrary, is "the fabric that gives our essences their solidity" (VI 119).

Morin (Ch 7 §1, fn 5 + §2, fn 17) credits Dastur's "La lecture merleau-pontienne de Heidegger" (Chiasmi International 2) as the source for this reading. The Dastur article is not in raw/; the present page rests on Morin's reportage.

Relation to the Ineinander / chiasm family

The verbal Wesen is not a standalone concept but a member of the late-MP cluster organized around the Ineinander-chiasm-flesh family. VI 174 makes the identification explicit: the Wesen (verbal sense) is the Ineinander — the structure that "nobody sees" because it is the very condition of seeing, urpräsentiert (presented) precisely as the nichturpräsentierbar (the non-presentable). This places verbal Wesen at the same ontological register as chiasm, Ineinander, and the flesh: it is not a category about beings but a register of being's self-manifestation. The verbal-Wesen formulation is the one MP uses when the analysis is at the thing-level (this table, this rose); the Ineinander formulation is the one used at the structural-level (intersubjectivity, body-world, visible-invisible).

Textual evidence

The two principal Visible and Invisible passages: VI 119 — facticity as "the fabric that gives our essences their solidity," ideas as "the nervure that bears the leaf from within" (Morin Ch 7 p. 161–62). VI 174–175 — Wesen as the Ineinander "which nobody sees" but is urpräsentiert as nichturpräsentierbar (VI 174); Wesen of the table as "that which tablefies in it" (VI 175). Morin's own framing at Ch 7 §1 p. 161 names the structural move: MP "reappropriates Husserl's Wesenserschau by inflecting it through Heidegger's verbal Wesen, undoing the whatness/thatness opposition without returning to facticity-against-essence." Both passages are working notes — Wesen (verbal sense) belongs to the unfinished register of VI, which matters because the verbal reading is enacted rather than systematized.

Connections

contrasts with wesen-hegel — Hegel's Wesen is the substantive Reflexionsbestimmung of WdL Book 2 (essence as Sein's modal recoil, the four Reflexionsbestimmungen, Grund); MP's verbal Wesen is the tablefying of the table, a participle-register operation. The two share the German noun but operate at categorially distinct registers — Hegel's is an objective-logical category, MP's is an Ineinander-register happening. Linking them via "Wesen" is a false friend unless the register-distinction is held.
is a reformulation of Husserl's Wesenserschau — MP keeps Husserl's question of essence-disclosure but inflects Wesen itself verbally; essences are no longer abstracted from variants by imaginary variation but seen between variants (Morin Ch 7 §2 p. 161–62; VI 119).
shares mechanism with ineinander — verbal Wesen is the Ineinander "which nobody sees" but is urpräsentiert as nichturpräsentierbar (VI 174). The two formulations name the same ontological structure under different aspects.
enacts chiasm — the verbal Wesen operates at the chiasmic register (mutual implication of facticity and essence, of was and dass), not at the categorial register of a doctrine of essence.
is the condition of intelligibility of flesh-as-element — the flesh as "element" requires the verbal reading of Wesen: flesh is not a substance (a stuff) but the fleshing by which seer and seen, touching and touched, are interleaved. Without the verbal Wesen, the flesh collapses into either materiality or a mystified substrate.
contrasts with cartesian-sartrian-ontology-of-the-object — verbal Wesen rejects the inspectio mentis (Cartesian) and the Wesenserschau-as-detached-survey (Husserlian) that both treat essence as what is seen "all naked." Morin Ch 7 §1 p. 160 reads MP's persistent target as "objective thought."

Open Questions

Does Morin's verbal-Wesen reading hold against Dastur's original article? Morin credits Dastur, "La lecture merleau-pontienne de Heidegger" (Chiasmi International 2), as the source for the verbal reading. The Dastur article is not in raw/; verification of Morin's reportage against Dastur's own claims is an open dependency.
How does MP's verbal Wesen relate to late Heidegger's Wesensherkunft register in GA 11? GA 11 uses Wesen and Wesensherkunft in the context of the Austrag and the onto-theo-logical constitution — registers that look closer to verbal Wesen than to Hegelian Wesen. Whether MP's verbal Wesen and Heidegger's Wesensherkunft operate at the same register, or whether MP's is a thing-level and Heidegger's a Seinsgeschick-level, is not adjudicated in the current corpus.
Should a dedicated wesenserschau page be opened? The Husserlian Wesenserschau is currently referenced only in prose across MP-cluster pages. The verbal-Wesen reading depends on a clear contrast with Husserlian Wesenserschau (essence-by-imaginary-variation) — a candidate for future stub creation.

Sources

morin-2022-mp-nancy-sense-being — primary locus: Ch 7 §1, pp. 158–61 (Husserlian-Cartesian objective-thought target; MP's third-path reappropriation); Ch 7 §2, pp. 161–62 (tablefying/roseness at VI 174–175; facticity-as-fabric at VI 119; Wesen as Ineinander at VI 174). Morin (Ch 7 fns 5, 17) credits Dastur, "La lecture merleau-pontienne de Heidegger" (Chiasmi International 2).
merleau-ponty-1968-visible-and-invisible — anchor passages: VI 119 (facticity as fabric of essences; ideas as nervure of the leaf); VI 174 (Wesen as Ineinander "which nobody sees," urpräsentiert as nichturpräsentierbar; "roseness extending itself throughout the rose"); VI 175 ("the Wesen of the table is 'that which tablefies in it'"). All working-note passages; the verbal Wesen is enacted in the unfinished register of VI rather than systematized.