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Merleau-Ponty and Metaphysical Realism

James, Simon P.

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Abstract

Global metaphysical antirealism (or “antirealism”) is often thought to entail that the identity of each and every concrete entity in our world ultimately depends on us—on our adoption of certain social and linguistic conventions, for instance, or on our use of certain conceptual schemes. Drawing on the middle‐period works of Maurice Merleau‐Ponty, I contend that metaphysical antirealism entails nothing of the sort. For Merleau‐Ponty, I argue, entities do not ultimately owe their identities to us, even though—as he puts it—their “articulations are the very ones of our existence.” Once this is recognised, I maintain, certain interpretations of phenomenology are revealed to be caricatures and certain general objections to antirealism lose their force.

Citation

James, S. P. (2018). Merleau-Ponty and Metaphysical Realism. European Journal of Philosophy, 26(4), 1312-1323. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.12386

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jun 17, 2018
Online Publication Date Jul 26, 2018
Publication Date Dec 1, 2018
Deposit Date Jul 4, 2018
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal European Journal of Philosophy
Print ISSN 0966-8373
Electronic ISSN 1468-0378
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 26
Issue 4
Pages 1312-1323
DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.12386

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Copyright Statement
This is the accepted version of the following article: James, Simon P. (2018). Merleau-Ponty and Metaphysical Realism. European Journal of Philosophy 26(4): 1312-1323, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.12386. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.





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