Hanno ancora qualcosa da dirci Sartre e Merleau-Ponty oggi? Sessant’anni dopo i loro “contraccolpi” – consumatisi nella redazione di una rivista come “Les Temps Modernes” – vale ancora la pena di ripercorrere quella storia? È questa la domanda che apre l’ultimo numero di “aut aut” curato da Enrica Lisciani-Petrini e Raoul Kirchmayr. Si tratta di una domanda a cui è difficile rispondere e che ha a che fare con che cos’è la filosofia (oggi) e – soprattutto – che cos’è un filosofo (oggi). È una domanda che, nel caso di Sartre e di Merleau-Ponty, non chiama in causa soltanto due differenti scuole di pensiero, ma anche due modi differenti di intendere il mondo, la politica, gli altri e le relazioni con essi. Ma si tratta, in fondo, di una domanda che – con le parole di Sartre – ci porta a riflettere sul fatto che “si è filosofi quando si è morti”, poiché – in fondo – “fino a quando viviamo, siamo uomini che, tra l’altro, scrivono opere di filosofia”. E allora la risposta a quella domanda non può che essere affermativa: il loro “dissidio produttivo” (è questo il titolo del numero 381 di “aut aut”) è un atto vitale, un incontro-scontro necessario fra persone che fanno vivere la filosofia.Sartre et Merleau-Ponty ont-ils encore quelque chose à nous dire aujourd’hui ? Soixante années après leurs « contrecoups » – qui ont eu lieu dans la rédaction de la revue Les Temps Modernes – vaut-il encore la peine de reparcourir cette histoire ? Voilà la question qui ouvre le dernier numéro de la revue « aut aut », sous la direction d’Enrica Lisciani-Petrini et Raoul Kirchmayr. Il s’agit d’une question à laquelle il est difficile de répondre et qui est en rapport avec ce qu’est la philosophie (aujourd’hui) et – surtout – avec ce qu’est un philosophe (aujourd’hui). Il s’agit d’une question qui, chez Sartre et Merleau-Ponty, ne met pas seulement en cause deux courants de pensée différents, mais aussi deux différentes manières de concevoir le monde, la politique, les autres et les relations qu’on entretient avec eux. Mais il s’agit, au fond, d’une question qui – en employant les mots de Sartre – nous conduit à réfléchir sur le fait que « l’on est philosophes quand on est morts », parce que – après tout – « jusqu’à ce que nous vivons, nous sommes des hommes qui, entre autre, écrivent des oeuvres de philosophie ». Alors la réponse à cette question ne peut être qu’affirmative : leur « différend productif » (c’est le titre du numéro 381 de « aut aut ») est un acte vital, en même temps une rencontre et un affrontement nécessaires entre des personnes qui font vivre la philosophie.Do Sartre and Merleau-Ponty still have something to say to us today? Sixty years after their “breakup” – which took place in editing the journal Les Temps Modernes – is it still worthwhile to go over this history? This is the question that opens the last issue of the journal “aut aut,” under the direction of Enrica Lisciani-Petrini and Raoul Kirchmayr. It is a question to which it is difficult to respond and bears on what philosophy is (today) – and especially with what a philosopher is today. It is a matter which, according to Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, does not only call into question two different currents of thought, but also two different ways of conceiving the world, politics, others and the relations between them. But it is a matter, at its core, which – employing the words of Sartre – leads us to reflect on the fact that “we are philosophers when we are dead,” because – after all – “while we are alive, we are men who, among other things, write works of philosophy.” Thus, the response to this question can only be affirmative: their “productive difference” (this is the title of number 381 of “aut aut”) is a vital act, at the same time an encounter and necessary confrontation between persons who breathe life into philosophy.

In this paper, I outline some key epistemic premises for a critical phenomenology of gestational experience, working through the analysis of pregnant embodiment in Merleau-Ponty’s Psychologie et pédagogie de l’enfant. The first part of my paper introduces Merleau-Ponty’s anti-essentialist position; in the second part, I focus on pregnant embodiment, and I highlight Merleau-Ponty’s conception of the gestating subject as a self in the world and of the gestational body as lived body. In the third and final part, I suggest how critical phenomenology might account philosophically for the situated experience of the gestating self by considering the intersection of pregnancy and disability as a case study. These findings may suggest a path for fruitful further analysis of pregnant lived experience, taking into account the axes of oppression and marginalisation which shape one’s subjectivity.

In this text we try to develop some considerations starting from the readings that Jacques Garelli elaborates through a profound reflection on the theses expounded by Merleau-Ponty in his latest works. In particular we, after recalling some points of contact between the two thinkers, comment on two long essays by Jacques Garelli dedicated to Rimbaud and Artaud. Through these re-readings we aim to highlight the novel characteristics that the author of Rythmes et mondes has managed to outline through an ever-greater study of the theses on language presented by Merleau-Ponty in his latest works.

This article retraces the main instances at the root of Merleau-Ponty’s project of a « transcendental geology », a project announced in a working note of 1960. This project is linked to the complex intertwining of history and nature, which Merleau-Ponty thematizes as the two non-objectifiable dimensions that pose a challenge to reflexive thought. History and nature, both in their particular subjective manifestations as personal life or one’s own body, as well as in their broader sense as the history of peoples or nature as a domain of the unbuilt, are characterized as unavoidable, as quasi-objects that are the soil of existence. It is in this direction that Merleau-Ponty’s interest in the “ultra-things” of Henri Wallon, those entities that the child can neither conceive nor imagine, seems to be heading. I propose that ultra-things are linked to inhabiting: they are the uninhabitable (the past before my birth, a distant planet) and the dimensions that cannot be renounced (one’s own body, the Earth, the story of my life). This relationship with inhabiting restores the relational aspect of the problem of the unreflective in Merleau-Ponty and highlights the timeliness and urgency of the program of a transcendental geology as an ecology of thought and as an ecological philosophy.

The emergence of ecology as a fundamental horizon not only of politics, but also of contemporary philosophy, pushes us to rethink the relationship that currents of thought such as Kuturkritik and phenomenology, especially the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, can maintain with it. After a preliminary consideration of post-structuralist and postmodern positions from this perspective, the essay focuses on the French philosopher, and in particular on his courses on Nature and on his elaboration of the Husserlian concept of Stiftung. This results in Merleau-Ponty’s original position on the Kultur – Civilization alternative: critique of unlimited productivism, respect for the environment, and, at the same time, defense of the variety of cultures and traditions from a homogenizing globalization are valuable tools that his philosophy offers to the debates of our time.