A Quest for Meaning: Merleau-Ponty's Concept of Perception and Intersubjectivity
I. INTRODUCTION: Man is a constant quest for meaning. Man has been searching for a long time for the purpose of his very self. The question on how to discover a meaningful existence is a responsibility of man for him to know the direction and purpose of life. Man desires to know the philosophical view of life that implies a related set of ideas about the ideal human existence. Wondering it with curiosity, man differs from the reference of existence to a realization that the life of man is not easy for comprehension. Being surrounded by suspicions, man is able to find out that life is basically a question of meaning. In the course of the history of philosophy, man is confronted by the problem concerning his nature and meaning. The question on the nature of man continues to confuse the great minds of philosophers. Moreover man’s quest for meaning offers a description, a way of existence in the world towards the recognition of intersubjectivity in relation to the nature of individual finitude. In this regard, man should validate the act that will determine existence, and so includes the self-fulfillment towards a meaningful life. The integration of philosophy into man‘s life experience finds an analogous meaning of existence. Man needs philosophy to be in contact with the world, his experience and his being; a philosophy which seeks to put forward a general philosophical understanding of the existence of man in the world. . In the book Quest for Meaning it was noted that “everyone desires to know and understand the world as one experiences it.” This paper exposes the contributions of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of intersubjectivity that enable insights to the human problems offered in the relation of the self and the world. This goal of this paper is to arrive at the development of man through dealing with the question of the meaning of existence. For this reason, the development of man is envisioned in a way of learning. “In learning how to see, we learn
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