Introduction
Welcome back. In our previous lessons, we have systematically assembled the key components of Merleau-Ponty's late ontology. We began with Flesh as the elemental fabric of reality, explored reversibility as its fundamental dynamic, and described the chiasm as the underlying structure that governs this intertwining.
Today, we will give a name to the primordial, pre-reflective reality that these concepts describe. Our learning outcome is to define 'wild Being' (être sauvage) and explain its role within Merleau-Ponty's late ontology. This concept represents the ultimate ground of his entire late philosophical project—the world as it is before we carve it up with our intellectual categories of 'subject' and 'object', 'mind' and 'matter'. It is Merleau-Ponty's answer to the perennial philosophical question: what is the fundamental nature of existence?
1. A First Definition: Brute and Wild Being
Before we get to the more complex aspects, let's start with a direct and accessible definition of wild Being. The term itself is evocative, suggesting something untamed, elemental, and prior to civilization or conceptualization.
This short article by Angela Clarke provides a clear and concise introduction to the concept. It's a useful entry point that defines wild Being and connects it to the other concepts we've been studying.
Please read the entire piece. Focus on how the author defines 'wild Being' in relation to 'flesh' and the goal of overcoming binary concepts. Also, note the important point about the interchangeability of terms in Merleau-Ponty's unfinished work.
From this reading, we can extract a foundational definition. Wild Being is:
- A search for the primordial: Merleau-Ponty seeks to access a "primordial sense of reality," which he terms "brute or wild Being."
- An indivisible unity: It is described as an "indivisible unit of substance" that precedes and resists the "clear-cut separation" into binary oppositions like mind/matter or subject/object.
- Ontologically primary: It is the most fundamental level of reality. As Merleau-Ponty states, an event of wild Being is "ontologically primary."
- Interchangeable with other terms: Crucially, the article notes that in Merleau-Ponty's working notes, terms like wild Being, brute Being, and sometimes even Flesh are used interchangeably to point toward this same primordial dimension.
This gives us our starting point: wild Being is Merleau-Ponty's name for the fundamental, pre-conceptual stuff of the world, the very fabric of the Flesh.
2. The Role of Wild Being: A New Ontology
Why did Merleau-Ponty need to invent a term like 'wild Being'? Its primary role is to serve as the cornerstone for a new kind of ontology—one that breaks decisively with centuries of philosophical tradition.
To understand this, we must first grasp what he was reacting against. Classical metaphysics, from Plato to Descartes and beyond, often conceived of Being as a kind of "Great Object" — a complete, determinate totality of things existing in space and time. This reality is surveyed by a disembodied, disinterested subject, a "cosmic observer" who is somehow not part of the world they observe. This creates an absolute split between the thinking subject (mind) and the extended object (world).
Merleau-Ponty finds this picture to be a violent abstraction that is false to our actual experience. His concept of 'wild Being' is designed to heal this split.
[PDF] hollow.pdf - City Research Online
This academic paper, while dense, offers a precise analysis of Merleau-Ponty's ontological project. We will read a short section that explains how 'wild Being' functions to overcome the subject-object divide of classical thought.
Please read the two paragraphs that make up the second half of the section 'Merleau-Ponty's Understanding of Ontology'. The section begins on page 4. The relevant part starts with the paragraph 'Ontology is therefore defined in a negative way...' and ends before the next main heading. Focus on the definition of wild Being as the 'common tissue' and how it makes concepts like 'consciousness' and 'body' into secondary abstractions.
This passage makes the role of wild Being explicit.
- It is the "common tissue of which we are made." This is not a metaphor; it means that both the perceiver and the perceived are cut from the same elemental cloth.
- It is "wild because it lacks the positivity, firmness, and definiteness of a thing." It is not an object among other objects but the very possibility of there being objects and subjects in the first place.
- It has ontological primacy. The text quotes Merleau-Ponty: consciousness and body are "abstractions cut out of the unity of Being." This is a critical point. In a way that might resonate with your mathematical background, you can think of wild Being as a fundamental, unified field or structure. Concepts like 'subject' and 'object' are not distinct entities but are rather derivative patterns or configurations that are abstracted from this more basic unity.
3. Intra-Ontology: The Fold in Being
If subject and object are both part of this one 'wild Being', how do we account for the undeniable experience of subjectivity—the sense of being a unique point of view on the world? If we are just 'tissue', where does consciousness come from?
Merleau-Ponty's solution is not to posit a separate, non-physical substance (like Descartes' soul). Instead, he describes subjectivity as a particular structure within wild Being. This leads to what the author of the previous reading calls an 'Intra-ontology'—an ontology of a Being that includes the philosopher within it.
[PDF] hollow.pdf - City Research Online
We will now read the next section of the same paper, which explains how Merleau-Ponty accounts for consciousness from within his new ontology. This is perhaps the most challenging, yet elegant, part of his late thought.
Please read the section titled 'Ontological Terms and Concepts', from the beginning down to the paragraph ending '...a Hollow' (page 7). Focus on the core idea of an 'Intra ontology' and the central metaphor of consciousness as a 'fold or hollow of Being'.
This section introduces the final, crucial piece of the puzzle.
- Intra-ontology: We are not external observers of Being; we are in it. Our ontology must account for our own inherence in the world. Being is something that is "encompassing–encompassed."
- The Fold or Hollow: Subjectivity is not a separate thing. It is a "fold or hollow" in the fabric of Being. Imagine a flat sheet of paper (wild Being). If you create a fold in it, you create an inside and an outside that did not exist before. This fold is still made of paper—it is not a new substance—but it has a new structure. For Merleau-Ponty, consciousness is just such a structure: a place where the tissue of Being folds back on itself, creating a point of reflection, a cavity, a "Hollow."
- Negativity from within Positivity: This 'hollow' is a kind of negativity (a non-thingness) that emerges from within the positivity of Being. It is not an absolute Nothingness opposing Being, but a structured absence, a divergence, like the écart we saw at the heart of the chiasm. It's the "unconcealedness of the concealedness," the world's way of making itself manifest to itself through a part of itself.
This is a radical move. The subject is no longer a spectator but a feature of the spectacle itself.
Conclusion
In this lesson, we have explored Merleau-Ponty's concept of 'wild Being', the capstone of his late ontology. It represents his attempt to think a reality prior to the conceptual divisions that have long defined Western philosophy.
Key Takeaways:
- Definition: 'Wild Being' (être sauvage) is Merleau-Ponty's term for the primordial, pre-differentiated Being that precedes the subject-object distinction. It is the untamed, elemental ground of reality.
- Role: Its philosophical role is to found a new, non-dualistic ontology that overcomes the split between mind and world.
- Primacy: Wild Being is ontologically primary. Traditional concepts like 'consciousness,' 'body,' 'subject,' and 'object' are considered secondary and derivative abstractions from this fundamental unity.
- Intra-ontology: This new ontology is an 'Intra-ontology,' developed from within Being. Within this framework, subjectivity is understood not as a separate substance but as a 'fold' or 'hollow' within the very fabric of wild Being.
Preview of the Next Lesson:
We have now established the core terms of Merleau-Ponty's late ontology: Flesh, Chiasm, and wild Being. In our next lesson, we will perform a crucial comparison. We will contrast the 'lived body' (Leib), the central concept of his earlier masterwork Phenomenology of Perception, with the ontological concept of 'Flesh' (chair). This will allow us to map the evolution of his thought and see precisely how his focus shifted from the structures of experience to the structure of Being itself.