Is ambiguïté the sortie from ambivalence?

Saint Aubert (E&C II Ch I §§ 2–3) defends a novel philological thesis: contrary to the received cliché of Merleau-Ponty as "philosopher of ambiguity" in a weak, irenic sense, ambiguïté and ambivalence are not synonyms but technical opposites. Ambiguïté is the sortie de l'ambivalence — the move from psychorigid monocular alternation to binocular depth-perception. The cardinal formula (Saint Aubert 2021, p. 64): "L'ambiguïté n'est donc pas l'ambivalence, mais désigne tout au contraire la sortie de l'ambivalence, dans une surrection libératrice du vertige."

The thesis matters because it changes how MP is positioned. The "philosopher of ambiguity" reading (going back to Waelhens 1951) treats MP as an irenic synthesizer of opposites — body and mind, self and other, finite and infinite. Saint Aubert's reading treats MP as a polemicist against ambivalence, with ambiguïté as the conquered third term that resolves what ambivalence cannot. This is a sharper, less irenic MP — closer to Hegel's Phenomenology than to a phenomenology of "and-also."

The Genealogy

Saint Aubert traces a precise seven-step genealogy:

  1. 12 September 1951 — Jean Wahl's exchange with MP after the Geneva conference on L'homme et l'adversité. Wahl proposes the distinction bonne confusion / mauvaise confusion (HoXX p. 353–354/237). MP appropriates immediately.
  2. January 1953 — Éloge de la philosophie (inaugural Collège de France lecture, EP p. 14): "Quand il [le philosophe] se borne à subir l'ambiguïté, elle s'appelle équivoque. Chez les plus grands elle devient thème, elle contribue à fonder les certitudes, au lieu de les menacer. Il faudrait donc distinguer une mauvaise et une bonne ambiguïté."
  3. 1956 — Cours sur la dialectique (PhiDial): revendication of bonne ambiguïté as dialectique comme ambiguïté, against équivoque; first consolidated use of mauvaise dialectique (RC56 p. 78).
  4. 1957 — La Nature ou le monde du silence (NMS): mauvaise dialectique applied to Sartre's être-néant position (NMS 116).
  5. 1958 — Preparation of Nature course: first use of hyperdialectique (Saint Aubert's discovery).
  6. Autumn 1958 — Introduction à l'ontologie (EM1): hyperdialectique systematic.
  7. Spring 1959 — Le visible et l'invisible Ch 2 (Interrogation et dialectique): ambivalence used 16 times in VI2, 13 in preparation feuillets. Hyperdialectique = seule apte à l'ambiguïté.

The genealogy is precise: each station can be dated, located in a specific manuscript, and connected to the next. This is the philological strength of the thesis.

The Psychological Anchor

A second strength: Saint Aubert anchors the distinction in Else Frenkel-Brunswik's 1949 study "Intolerance of ambiguity as an emotional and perceptual personality variable" (Journal of Personality vol. 18, p. 108–143). The Rorschach-inspired research shows that psychorigid subjects avoid ambiguity via rigid dichotomies. This gives MP an empirical-psychological anchor for the distinction:

  • Psychorigidity = ambivalence: monocular alternation, inability to hold contradictory figures together via the third term.
  • Mature perception = ambiguïté: the binocular depth-conquering perception. This is the perceptual paradigm for philosophical maturity.

The Frenkel-Brunswik anchor matters because it grounds the distinction in concrete perceptual research, not in MP's general philosophical preferences. The distinction has empirical traction — it is a finding about perception, not a postulate about philosophy.

The Michaux-Thétique Discovery

A third pillar of Saint Aubert's argument: MP's late-1958 reading of Henri Michaux's essay "Un certain phénomène qu'on appelle musique" (Encyclopédie de la Musique, Fasquelle 1958) gives him the cardinal formula:

  • Michaux (p. 186): "C'est la pensée parlée surtout, plus encore que la vie vécue, qui crée l'ambivalence."
  • MP (EM2 [189]v(2), 1959, with marginal "Bon à relire avril 1960"): "C'est le thétique qui est ambivalent. Mon préobjectif-ambigu est promiscuité sans équivoque."
  • MP (EM2 [227], note titled "Ambiguïté, Être, ambivalence"): "L'idée de l'ambiguïté par transcendance, donc. Elle entraîne que toute conscience thétique soit, en tant justement que thétique et univoque, dans l'ambivalence, refoulant hors d'elle-même une contre-signification avec laquelle elle est incompatible."

The thétique (the act of positing a definite predicate) is inherently ambivalent because it is ventriloque (Plato, Sophiste 252c): the univocal thesis secretly carries its contradictory with it, forbidding the third term. Univocity is not the absence of ambivalence; it is the suppression of ambiguïté.

This is Saint Aubert's strongest analytic claim: that ambivalence is not indecision but secret hidden alternation, and ambiguïté is not indecision but acknowledged third-term depth. The distinction is not between two kinds of indecision but between hidden alternation and acknowledged depth.

What's Defensible, What's Open

Defensible:

  • The genealogy from Wahl 1951 → VI2 1959 is philologically tight and well-anchored in archival materials. Saint Aubert's reconstruction is strong precisely because the steps are dated and located.
  • The Frenkel-Brunswik anchor gives empirical-psychological traction to the distinction, beyond MP's general preferences.
  • The Michaux discovery (1958) is a precise textual event with clear MP marginalia — "Bon à relire avril 1960" shows MP's continued investment in the formula.

Open:

  • MP himself often uses "ambiguïté" loosely in published texts (e.g., PhP, IS), where the distinction is not technically enforced. Saint Aubert reads this as MP partly trapping himself by the term: "Merleau-Ponty s'est en partie piégé lui-même" (p. 64). But it could equally be read as evidence that the distinction was never as load-bearing as Saint Aubert claims.
  • The standard reading (Waelhens 1951 onward) has 70+ years of inertia. Saint Aubert's archival reconstruction is the strongest challenge to it, but a single book (E&C II 2021) cannot by itself shift a long interpretive tradition.
  • Does the distinction extend to MP's political writings (the politique of interworld, Adventures of the Dialectic)? Saint Aubert does not develop this, though ambiguity-vs-ambivalence notes that Adventures of the Dialectic (1955) suggests yes (the politique as hyperdialectique).

Why It Matters

If Saint Aubert is right, several reading habits about MP need revision:

  1. Against the irenic-MP reading. MP is not a philosopher of "and-also" who synthesizes oppositions; he is a polemicist against ambivalence with a precise technical alternative (ambiguïté = depth).
  2. Against the early-late-continuity narrative. The 1951–1959 genealogy shows that the distinction is forged in MP's later work, not present from the start. The early MP is closer to the irenic reading; the late MP is what Saint Aubert reconstructs.
  3. For the technical reading of MP. MP becomes a more technical thinker, whose vocabulary (ambiguïté, ambivalence, hyperdialectique, écart, figuratif) has precise relations that reward careful philological work.

For sub-questions and the full distinction, see ambiguity-vs-ambivalence. For the relation to the good / bad ambiguity distinction, see the Bad Ambiguity = Ambivalence section there.

Connections

Sources

  • saintaubert-2021-etre-et-chair-ii — Ch I §§ 2–3 (p. 61–85), the systematic statement. Cardinal page p. 64. Also Ch VII § 2a (p. 281–283) for the metaphor-register extension.
  • ambiguity-vs-ambivalence — the dedicated concept page, containing the technical genealogy and the Michaux discovery.
  • good-ambiguity — the Bad Ambiguity = Ambivalence section formalizes the structural correspondence.
  • merleau-ponty-1968-visible-and-invisible — VI2 Interrogation et dialectique is the published locus where hyperdialectique takes systematic form (p. 118–130).
  • Primary archival refs (via Saint Aubert): NMS 116, 1957; PhiDial 52, 54, 64, 1956; RC56 p. 78; EP p. 14 (Jan 1953); HoXX p. 353–354/237 (Wahl 1951); EM2 [177]v(II), [189]v(2), [227]; Dial-T&C 189; NPVIf [169], [172]v; NLVIaf2 [132], 135; VI2 p. 103–104, p. 125, p. 129.
  • Secondary: Frenkel-Brunswik 1949; Michaux 1958; Plato, Sophiste 252c; Wahl exchange 1951.