Merleau-Ponty: from constitution to institution

Abstract

The following paper analyzes the presence and the role of the concepts of institution and constitution in the works of Merleau-Ponty. We try to understand the reference to the philosophy of Husserl, where such concepts are interlaced with the phenomenological task of overcoming the crisis of reason through the installation of a rigorous knowledge, founded on the power of the constitution of consciousness. We take into account, however, the fact that, for Merleau-Ponty, phenomenology must admit that the secret and wild infrastructure where, and from which, our theses are born cannot be produced by acts of absolute consciousness. After all, this infrastructure is the foundation from which all experience is produced. Consequently, our experience cannot be reduced to the constitution of the world by absolute consciousness. On the contrary, the philosopher seeks the genesis of our theories and our understanding of the world in a dimension that is anterior to acts of consciousness. A passage from a philosophy of settings to a philosophy of genesis, the thought of Merleau-Ponty brings, moreover, along with the overlapping and the reversibility between nature and temporality, a new conception of historicity, which is precisely what the notion of institution proposes. It is this passage - from the centrality of the constitution in Husserl to Merleau-Ponty's notion of institution - that we aim to bring to light.