Painting does not imitate the world but is a world of its own.In 1948 Maurice MerleauPonty wrote and delivered on French radio a series ofseven lectures on the ... » 

Painting does not imitate the world but is a world of its own.In 1948 Maurice MerleauPonty wrote and delivered on French radio a series ofseven lectures on the theme of perception. Translated here into English for thefirst time they offer a lucid and concise insight into one of the greatphilosophical minds of the twentiethcentury.The lectures explore themes central not only to MerleauPontys philosophy butto phenomenology as a whole. He begins by rejecting the idea inherited fromDescartes and influential within science that perception is unreliable proneto distort the world around us. MerleauPonty instead argues that perception isinseparable from our senses and it is how we make sense of the world.MerleauPonty explores this guiding theme through a brilliant series ofreflections on science space our relationships with others animal life andart. Throughout he argues that perception is never something learned and thenapplied to the world. As creatures with embodied minds he reminds us that weare born perceiving and share with other animals and infants a state ofconstant raw unpredictable contact with the world. He provides vivid exampleswith the help of Kafka animal behavior and above all modern art particularlythe work of Cezanne.A thoughtprovoking and crystalline exploration of consciousness and thesenses The World of Perception is essential reading for anyone interestedin the work of MerleauPonty twentiethcentury philosophy and art. «