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Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty on Art: Physiognomy and World

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2019, Master of Arts, University of Toledo, Philosophy.
In this thesis, I show that Merleau-Ponty and Wittgenstein’s comparisons between aesthetic and linguistic expression are mutually illuminating. Particularly, by conceiving of expression as physiognomic, we find that what is expressed in language or in art cannot be disassociated from the expression itself. As such, meaning is embodied and on the very “face” of the word or work. Both Merleau-Ponty and Wittgenstein utilize the physiognomic capacity of music to set into higher relief the opacity of language, its ability to be meaning rather than simply point to it. Similarly, language and painting are compared in terms of their ability to express meaning as their respective mediums. Lived, public language “inaugurates” meaning itself; it is not a placeholder for an inner lexicon held within private subjects. We cannot, then, appeal to a “language before language.” So too with painting; even in pictorial modes, we cannot appeal to a “painting before painting” which an innocent eye receives. I argue that this implies the boundary between conventional and natural signs is a false dilemma. I further critique Merleau-Ponty’s account of music in Eye and Mind. By setting his and Wittgenstein’s views on language and art side by side, we undo various distinctions such as that between mind and body, signifier and signified, convention and nature, self and world.
Ammon Allred (Committee Chair)
Benjamin Grazzini (Committee Member)
Madeline Muntersbjorn (Committee Member)
109 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Engleman, M. (2019). Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty on Art: Physiognomy and World [Master's thesis, University of Toledo]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1556884667219745

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Engleman, Max. Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty on Art: Physiognomy and World. 2019. University of Toledo, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1556884667219745.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Engleman, Max. "Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty on Art: Physiognomy and World." Master's thesis, University of Toledo, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1556884667219745

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)