Abstract

BUFFONE, Jesica Estefanía. “Going Towards” from the Others. Merleau-Ponty’s Appropriation of the Notion of Intentional Arc. Diánoia [online]. 2017, vol.62, n.79, pp.77-102. ISSN 0185-2450.

This paper aims to explore the genesis of the function called “intentional arc” during childhood, considering it as a process of gradual development and analysing the intermediate processes (like the constitution of the self and the emergence of the world of objects) that collaborate in its definition. I also attempt to demonstrate that the concept of intentional arc, though scarcely developed by Merleau-Ponty, has consequences that imbue and support much of his perceptual theory. Clarifying the conceptual framework that sustains it can not only shed light on the genesis of perception in his theory, but also provides valuable tools to account for the beginning of the constitution of the habitual body in childhood.

Keywords : childhood; perception; body schema; interaction; corporeality.