Saturday, December 17, 2016

Beyond Objects: The Reversal of Phenomenological Ontology's Order of Analysis - Begin with Representamen as Perceptual Ground (Powers, not Things)

Lanigan has a slightly dated paper (1995) that leaves us with some clues as to how phenomenological ontology may find a successfully realist yet speculative, and yet non-object oriented order of analysis, via Merleau-Ponty's reversal of phenomenology's traditional transcendental starting point of the Transcendental Ego (Husserl, or Sarte's auto-nihilating consciousness) into an other-yet-identical outside of consciousness which is realized as "conjuncture," however before realization is the preobjective sustaining "ground" of the as-yet-to-be wholly articulated individual (object). (E.g. The Peircean Triad.)

I have translated Lanigan's title to bring into relief this important underlying point of his paper.

For those who read Schelling or Peirce this specific form of phenomenological ontology - carnal yet semiotic, reversed into perceptual sensibility yet also translucently phaneroscopic, opens pathways yet to be explored in current debates surrounding idealism/realism in contemporary speculative-metaphysical philosophy. In this I have found the later work of Merleau-Ponty to be key. A true "transcendental naturalism" worth exploring.

Link below...

http://www.focusing.org/apm_papers/lanigan.html