Introduction
Welcome to the first lesson of our module on expression and intersubjectivity. In our previous lesson, we pivoted from knowledge acquisition to application, focusing on the crucial skill of constructing a thesis statement for a philosophical essay. This exercise in rigor and precision, which resonates with your mathematical background, is fundamental to your goal of writing academic philosophy.
We concluded our study of the Phenomenology of Perception's core argument with the concept of the lived body as the primary subject of experience. This, however, raises a profound question that has troubled philosophers for centuries: if my consciousness is fundamentally tied to my body, how can I ever genuinely encounter another consciousness, another subject? Am I not trapped in a world of my own sensations and perspectives—a state known as solipsism?
This lesson confronts that challenge directly. Merleau-Ponty's answer does not lie in a clever logical proof but in a radical re-description of experience itself. He argues that our primary encounter with others is not an intellectual inference but a direct, bodily recognition. The learning outcome for this lesson is to explain Merleau-Ponty's account of how we perceive other subjects through 'intercorporeality'. We will see how the very structure of our own lived body opens us onto a shared world with others.
1. From "Other Minds" to Embodied Encounters
The traditional "problem of other minds," prominent in philosophy since Descartes, starts from the premise of an isolated, disembodied mind (an ego or 'I think'). From this standpoint, other people's bodies are just complex objects in the world. I can observe their behaviour and infer, by analogy to my own case, that they probably have a mind inside. But I can never be certain; their inner life remains inaccessible.
Merleau-Ponty argues that this entire problem is artificial, created by a faulty starting point. If we start not with a disembodied cogito but with the lived body as our fundamental mode of Being-in-the-world, the problem dissolves. The following reading explains this crucial reframing.
[PDF] MERLEAU-PONTY ON INTERSUBJECTIVITY, SUBJECTIVITY AND ...
This text, 'MERLEAU-PONTY ON INTERSUBJECTIVITY, SUBJECTIVITY AND HUSSERLIAN PHENOMENOLOGY' by Luís Aguiar de Sousa, clearly lays out Merleau-Ponty's critique of the traditional approach to intersubjectivity.
Please read the section titled 'IV'. It begins with 'Hitherto, it may seem that Merleau-Ponty does not add much...' and ends just before section 'V'. Focus on Merleau-Ponty's argument that starting with a 'transcendental ego' makes the existence of others unintelligible. Pay close attention to the transformative question he poses: 'If my consciousness has a body, why shouldn't the other's consciousness have one too?'
As the reading shows, Merleau-Ponty's move is to reject the premise that leads to the problem. If I am not a 'for-itself' consciousness trapped inside an 'in-itself' body-object, but am fundamentally an embodied subject, then the problem changes. When I encounter another body, I am not encountering a mere mechanism that I must animate with a projected "mind." Instead, I immediately perceive that body as a center of behaviour and meaning, much like my own. The question is no longer "How can I prove other minds exist?" but "How does this immediate recognition of another subject actually work?"
2. Intercorporeality: A Direct Bodily Recognition
Merleau-Ponty's answer is the concept of intercorporeality (intercorporéité). This is his term for the fundamental, pre-reflective connection between lived bodies. It is not a thought process, an analogy, or an inference. It is a direct, unmediated communication that happens at the level of the body itself.
The next resource, a chapter by Sara Heinämaa, provides a concise and powerful explanation of this core concept and its most famous examples.
[PDF] Merleau-Ponty: A Phenomenological Philosophy of Mind and Body
In this chapter from 'Merleau-Ponty: A Phenomenological Philosophy of Mind and Body', Sara Heinämaa provides a precise definition of intercorporeality and the mechanism that makes it possible.
Please read section '3. Intercorporeality'. It starts with '‘Intercorporeality’ (intercorporéité) is a general heading...'. Your focus should be on three key points: The definition of intercorporeality as a 'direct recognition of the other body as similar to one’s own body.' The examples of the infant and of shaking hands. The explanation of how this recognition is possible: because our own body is a 'dual system' of interiority (kinaesthesis) and exteriority (vision/touch).
Let's systematize the crucial point from that reading. Intercorporeality is possible because my own body is not a simple, self-identical object. It is paradoxically structured.
- When I move my hand, I have a kinaesthetic feeling of the movement from the inside. I feel the intention and the unfolding of the action.
- Simultaneously, I can see my hand moving from the outside, as an object in my visual field.
My lived body is this constant "intertwining" or "chiasm" of interiority and exteriority. Because my own experience already contains this link between an external, visible gesture and an internal, felt intention, I am equipped to understand the gestures of others. When I see another person reach for a glass, my body doesn't perceive a meaningless physical displacement. It perceives an intention—a familiar power of acting in the world—because that visible gesture resonates with the system of equivalences already present in my own lived body. The other's gesture awakens a motor potential within me, allowing me to understand it directly, without thinking.
As Heinämaa quotes Merleau-Ponty: "...he and I are like organs of one single intercorporeality." This doesn't mean we mystically merge into one being. It means our bodies are structured in such a way that they can immediately correspond and communicate with one another, forming a shared system of perception and action.
3. The Body Schema as a System of Equivalences
To deepen this point, we must revisit the concept of the body schema (schéma corporel). As we've seen, this is not a picture of the body in our head, but the body's dynamic, practical unity—our implicit knowledge of how to move to accomplish tasks. It's the "I can" that underpins all our actions.
In the context of intersubjectivity, the body schema acts as a "system of equivalences." It is the structure that allows my body to "translate" between different sensory modalities and between the 'inside' and 'outside' of action. This power of translation is what extends to others.
[PDF] MERLEAU-PONTY ON INTERSUBJECTIVITY, SUBJECTIVITY AND ...
We return to de Sousa's paper to explore the role of the body schema as the mechanism enabling intercorporeality.
Please read the first four paragraphs of section 'V', starting from 'I will limit myself to pointing to certain features...' and ending at '...the common texture of all objects'. Focus on how the body schema is defined as a 'system of equivalences' or 'translation' that grounds the relation between inner and outer, and how this allows us to grasp the meaning of another's gesture.
This idea of a "system of equivalences" is key. My body schema ensures the correspondence between the kinaesthetic feeling of a movement and its visual appearance. Because of this, when I perceive the visual appearance of another's movement, my body schema can immediately provide the corresponding kinaesthetic/intentional meaning.
This leads to a crucial insight: my encounter with the other is not primarily an encounter between two minds. It is an encounter between two body schemas. As de Sousa quotes Merleau-Ponty, the other's body and my own become "a single whole, two sides of a single phenomenon."
A final point of clarification comes from another part of de Sousa's text. This initial, bodily encounter is what Merleau-Ponty calls intercorporeality. It is the foundation. Full "intersubjectivity," which involves recognizing another distinct person with a unique history and perspective, is built upon this anonymous, pre-personal bodily communion.
As de Sousa notes, quoting Merleau-Ponty, "the very first cultural object, and the one by which they all exist, is the other’s body as the bearer of a behavior." Before we can understand tools, language, or institutions, we must first be able to perceive another body as a locus of meaningful action in the world.
Conclusion
In this lesson, we have explored Merleau-Ponty's profound and influential account of how we perceive other subjects. By shifting the philosophical starting point from an isolated mind to the lived body, he dissolves the traditional "problem of other minds" and replaces it with a description of our immediate, pre-reflective encounter with others.
Key Takeaways:
- Merleau-Ponty reframes the problem of intersubjectivity by arguing that the idea of a disembodied, solipsistic ego is an abstraction that creates a false problem.
- Intercorporeality is the direct, pre-reflective, and non-inferential recognition of another's body as a meaningful, intentional subject like our own.
- This is possible because our own lived body is already a dual system, an intertwining of an 'inside' (kinaesthetic sense) and an 'outside' (visual/tactile appearance).
- The body schema, as a "system of equivalences," allows us to "translate" the visible gestures of another into their intentional meaning, creating a shared phenomenal field.
- This anonymous, bodily communion is the foundation for all higher-level forms of intersubjectivity, communication, and social life.
Preview of the Next Lesson:
Intercorporeality provides the basic fabric of our social world. The next logical step is to examine how this pre-reflective understanding gives rise to more explicit forms of communication. In our next lesson, we will build directly on today's concepts to explain the role of gesture in Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of communication. We will see how gesture is not a secondary sign for a pre-existing thought, but is the embodiment and enactment of meaning in the world.