Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (March 14, 1908 ? May 4, 1961) was a French phenomenologist philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl, and often somewhat mistakenly classified as an existentialist thinker because of his close association with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, and his distinctly Heideggerian conception of Being.

Life

In 1930, Merleau-Ponty completed his training at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, where he had studied with Jean-Paul Sartre. In 1949, four years after the publication of the Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty was awarded the Chair of Child Psychology at the Sorbonne.

Related Topics:
Ecole Normale Supérieure - Jean-Paul Sartre - Phenomenology of Perception - Sorbonne

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At 44, Merleau-Ponty was the youngest ever Chair of Philosophy at the College de France when he was appointed in 1952. He held this position until May 1961, when he died suddenly of a stroke, apparently while preparing for a class on Descartes.

Related Topics:
College de France - Stroke - Descartes

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Merleau-Ponty is interred in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

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