Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Theory of Perception 

This guy communicates information very effectively! Pleasure to listen to.

That was a great explanation. Thank you.

Thank you for sharing. I hope to have some discussing online video chat on your channel.

Kant was a transcendental philosopher, not a phenomenologist. If one uses these categories (which makes sense), why not the correct ones. (There might be a misunderstanding that Merleau-Ponty might have claimed in passing some of Kant's insights had been arrived at by a phenomenological procedure, which is a way of advertising the validity of phenomenology in regard to older philosophers. However it would be more fitting to apply to Schopenhauer, who could be described as Kant's successor. He by the way advertised himself - but Kant also - similarly in regard to older philosophers.)

I don't think Merleau Ponty took the gestalt-phenomena as the reason for his philosophy, but merely as an empirical argument. Edmund Husserl, for that matter, was basically the founder of the method of phenomenology and I think the term proper, and Merleau-Ponty also saw himself in his tradition. (Psychology, for that matter, is and always was - mostly - a travesty of science and academia. Otherwise the argument could be made, of course, probably on the minds of some viewers, "why not simply jump on psychology, because of these AWESOME gestalt phenomena a hundred years ago or so already?" However that is basic empiricism, for that matter, itself an absolute rarity in that field or otherwise a total oversimplification of complexities. Yes, they hardly can do right, but that's their fault, thinking any critical methods of science and academia, or ethics, exclusively don't apply to them, but that's not really the topic now. Also, and more simply, they are largely not compatible in method or purpose, in other words, they remain different fields anyway. Which has also been discussed aplenty in the wake of such topics in the early 20th century.) As for Kant, while there is an perspectival and conceptual shift, it is probably a mistake to think that his results would have to be taken literally as a description of active "intellectual operations". Which would probably hurt all kinds of formal criteria.

That notion of the “pregnancy of matter” with potential forms is already present in Giordano Bruno’s lovely book Cause, Principle, and Unity. Thank you this was very helpful.

Wow, now my new interest is perception, I like the idea that perception as a child and adult is different, such a new concept to look into

Just one simple critique of the Aristotelean distinction between matter and form by Merleau Ponty uprooted and exposed what I had unwittingly accepted as the totality of perception. Merleau Ponty is like therapy for those of us in the western intellectual tradition who state truth claims without considering epistemic humility. Thank you.

an excellent introduction to Merleau-Ponty.

can i ask you if there is the transcript??

I cant find these early essays anywhere

Science has evolved so much and intersecting with philosophy. Te matter of perception in Neuro is much different now that 100 years ago as the meaning of time and space. New thinkers will need to figure that out both versed in science and philosophy.

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Thank you so much for the video; your knowledge is greatly appreciated and has been incredibly helpful!

Very good presentation. I'm a bit skeptical of the whole move away from Kant in this period though.

Kant the phenomenologist?

Does Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological theory of perception a form of direct realism (naive realism) or indirect realism (representationalism)?

Well done, thank you

Maurice MP's book was Heideggerian NOT Kantian.

It is not wise to dispense with the matter/form distinction. Neither am I arguing for naïve realism. Somethings which exist conceptually can be denied genuine material expression. That is not cause to abandon a useful axiom. The phenomenon of becoming can not be explained outside of dualism. That polarity does not need physical rootedness anymore than irrational numbers need to be physically handled to understand indebtedness. This idea of brute physicality is the wall against which philosophy breaks it's nose. A preposterous desire to have real world corollaries pushes modern thinkers to believe that ancients were hasty. This reminds me of the scavenger hunt for unified field theory. We need to knock on wood in a superstitious attempt to control immateriality instead of understanding it. That is why philosophy has come to a screeching halt with the aid of fools like Habermas. Truth is not found in appearance, so it makes no difference how we treat analogies. It is reason that accelerates insight, not the most accurate lay of the land.

Aren't these just as arbitrary as Kant's transcendental categories? Assuming that one's perception is accurate regarding things like figure/background and depth begs the question of "how do you know that?" Here's the problem in a nutshell: you've got a set of things labeled "things I know." I come along and ask you "how do you know that you know these things?" You can't reference inside the set, as that would be viciously circular. You can't say "I just do," as that would be affirming arbitrariness as part of philosophical argumentation, which would affirm contradictions. You can't reference outside of the set, as you don't know those things.