Abstract

In this article, I discuss the problem of the Lebenswelt, which in Merlau-Ponty’s philosophy is connected with aesthetics. I try to develop Merleau-Ponty’s conception of relation between Lebenswelt and existence by exploring the most interesting of the latest writings, including Lebenswelt as a main problem in the perspective of Merlau-Ponty’s philosophy – The Visible and the Invisible. In The Visible and the Invisible Merlau-Ponty returns to his critique of realism and intellectualism. He then provides a decisive refutation of Sartre’s account on our being in the world, as presented in Being and Nothingness. In this paper I show Merleau-Ponty’s new conception of the body, as a chiasm or crossing-over, which combines subjective experience and objective existence. All these problems in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy are connected with the problem of Lebenswelt, such as the problem inspired by aesthetics