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Can Merleau-Ponty's Notion of 'Flesh' Inform or even Transform Environmental Thinking?

Environmental Values 14(2005): 353-362. doi: 10.3197/096327105774434468

Reference to Merleau-Ponty's ideas surfaces in environmental thinking from time to time. This paper examines whether, and in what way, his ideas could be helpful to that thinking. In order to arrive at a conclusion I examine in detail and attempt to clarify the notions of 'Flesh' and 'Earth' in order to see if they can carry the meanings that commentators sometimes attribute to them. With a clearer outline of what he was saying in place, I suggest that the new ontology that Merleau-Ponty introduces could help to transform environmental thinking, but that careful argumentation is required to show this.

KEYWORDS: Merleau-Ponty, Flesh, subject-object, eco-phenomenology

REFERENCES to other articles in Environmental Values:

Ontology, Ethics, and Sentir: Properly Situating Merleau-Ponty Melissa Clarke

This article is available online (PDF format) from Ingenta Journals. Access is free if your institution subscribes to Environmental Values. Reprints of this article can be ordered from ingenta or the British Library

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