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Maurice Merleau-Ponty's concept of the "pre-objective" world is the key at once to his theory of perception and to his philosophical anthropology. His Phénoménologie de la perception ¹ might almost be interpreted as an attempt to introduce the concept into philosophy and into those sciences that have man for their subject matter. The phenomenology of perception is for Merleau-Ponty the discovery and exploration of the world not such as everyday and scientific discourse describe it, but of the "pre-objective" world which it presupposes. As such it miplies an exploration of the phenomenal field or the "original" content of perception, which is supposed to set norms for, and limits to the kind of language psychologists, sociologists and laymen should use in talking about man. These two aspects of his work are closely linked, and are even held to stand or fall together. The link is made through the concept of the "pre-objective" world.² Other expressions are used by Merleau-Ponty such as "le monde vécu," "the phenomenal field," as near equivalents, but we shall generally use the terms "pre-objective" or "pre-pred-icative."³

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-5403-3_6

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