Abstract

The concept of "the flesh" (la chair) derives from the writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. This was the word he used to name the concrete realm of sentient bodies and life processes that has been eclipsed by the abstractions of science, technology, and modern culture. Topology, to conventional understanding, is the branch of mathematics that concerns itself with the properties of geometric figures that stay the same when the figures are stretched or deformed. Topologies of the Flesh blends continental thought and mathematical imagination, opening up a new area of philosophical inquiry: topological phenomenology. Through its unique application of qualitative mathematics, this work extends the approaches of Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger so as to offer a detailed exploration of previously uncharted dimensions of human experience and the natural world.