Merleau-Ponty and Sartre’s philosophies differ fundamentally in temperament and relation to anxiety
Evidence
Merleau-Ponty was almost unique among the existentialist milieu in not being prone to such attacks of uncanniness or anxiety. It was an important difference between him and the neurotic Sartre. Merleau-Ponty was not followed down the street by lobsters; he had no fear of chestnut trees, and was not haunted by the thought of other people staring at him and fixing him in their judgemental gaze. Rather, for him, looking and being looked at are what weave us into the world and give us our full humanity. Sartre acknowledged this interweaving, and he also acknowledged the importance of the body, but it all seemed to make him nervous. Some kind of struggle is always going on in Sartre’s work — against facticity, against being devoured by the quicksand of Being, and against the power of the Other. Merleau-Ponty doesn’t struggle much, and doesn’t seem to fear dissolving into the syrupy or vaporous. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 753
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the reader’s existing interest in decorum toward corpses — Merleau-Ponty’s embodied, non-anxious relation to the world contrasts with Sartre’s alienated gaze. — connects to: Merleau-Ponty differs from Sartre and Heidegger by calmly accepting limitation as constitutive — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 725; The Sartre-Merleau-Ponty philosophical rift stemmed from temperamental differences — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 754; Merleau-Ponty’s elusive charm contrasted with Sartre’s confrontational directness — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 750
Broader Connections
- The Sartre-Merleau-Ponty philosophical rift stemmed from temperamental differences
#corroborates(1.00) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 754 - Merleau-Ponty’s elusive charm contrasted with Sartre’s confrontational directness
#expands(0.95) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 750