SEE AND THINK. CARTESIAN MECHANISTIC PHYSIOLOGY AND PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE BODY

As a tenacious and rigorous reader of the Cartesian corpus, Merleau-Ponty payed special attention to its ambiguities. On the one hand, the intellectualism of the Cartesian theory of perception (Dioptrique) goes along with a mechanistic physiology (Traite de l'Homme) and also with the substantial dualism of the first Meditations Metaphysiques. On the other, Descartes always insisted on hylomorphism, composition, permixtio and even substantial union. Thereby, the human body becomes endowed with such peculiar properties as its inner binding, indivisibility and a biological self-interest, instilling a certain teleology into a part of extension.