Luigi Corrias
Free University Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Yes, we can! Merleau-Ponty and Passivity in Collective Action
Merleau-Ponty’s notion of a corps-sujet has played a pivotal role in developing a conception of embodied cognition. Crucial steps have also been undertaken to understand the notion of embodied action. Paul Ricoeur, for example, already pointed to the importance of Merleau-Ponty’s Je peux for such an account.
Less attention has been given, however, to the development of Merleau-Ponty’s insights in the field of collective intentionality and plural subjectivity. This paper wants to make a contribution to this field. It starts from the premise that developing a notion of collective intentionality and plural subjectivity is necessary to make sense of political action, for example in such notions as self-government or self-legislation. However, until now, the work on collective intentionality has been done largely from an analytical perspective (Searle, Bratman, Gilbert and Tuomela amongst others), taking no or little account of the insights of phenomenology.
Hence, this paper seeks to explore what meaning the work of Merleau-Ponty can have for theories of collective action. Its hypothesis is that the most valuable insights can be found in his later works. There, he introduces the notion of passivity. He argues that there is a dimension of passivity to be reckoned with in any account of action. This dimension of passivity points to the ontological priority of the world in which we are inserted. Indeed, only by recognizing joint passivity in joint activity we may be able to grasp the crucial interaction between our action, the world and others necessary in an account of collective intentionality.