Abstract:
Abstract
This thesis is an investigation of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's notion of style via the
individual, artwork, and the world. It aims to show that subject-object, self-other, and
perceiver-perceived are not contrary, but are reverses of one another each requiring the other
for meaningful experience. In experience, these cognitive contraries are engaged in
relationships of communication and communion that render styles of interaction by which we
have/are a world. A phenomenological investigation of Merleau-Ponty's notion of style via
existential meaningfulness, corporeal and worldly understanding, stylistic nuances (with
respect to the individual, the artwork, and the world), and the existential temporal dynamic
provide the foundation for understanding our primordial connection with the world. This
phenomenological unpacking follows Merleau-Ponty's thought from Phenomenology of
Perception to "Cezanne's Doubt" and "Eye and Mind" through The Visible and the Invisible.
