Merleau-Ponty

Language and the Act of Speech

Wayne Jeffrey Froman

1982
ISBN 083875015X

In Merleau-Ponty: Language and the Act of Speech, Dr. Wayne Forman presents the development of Merleau-Ponty's philosophical interrogation of language and demonstrates the centrality of this problematic to Merleau-Ponty's overall philosophic endeavor. The book begins with a detailed examination of Merleau-Ponty's first major explicit treatment of the problematic of language, the chapter entitled "The Body as Expression, and Speech" in Phenomenology of Perception and isolates the point of departure for understanding Merleau-Ponty's account of language.

Merleau-Ponty's work demonstrates the pertinence of the problematic of language to first philosophy. He did not determine fully what language is. Nevertheless, as Dr. Froman demonstrates, he did take certain steps toward the act of originary philosophical speaking required in order to say fully what language is. His work demonstrates the inadequacy of theories which involve the assumption that language is a self-contained total system, empirically given, and the inadequacy of reductionist theories which portray spoken language as mere variations of a priori permanent categories.

About the author:

Wayne Jeffrey Froman is Professor at SUNY Potsdam.