ABSORBING

The Écart Between Philosophy and Modern Sciences in Merleau-Ponty’s Thought:

A Case Study of Merleau-Ponty’s Investigation on Time (Draft)

Yixuan LIU

Introduction Philosophy and Science–A Naïve Opposition?

In the early 19th century, Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835) implemented educational reforms that established the disciplinary classifications of modern universities, making education more systematic and specialized. However, this disciplinary segmentation also fostered an increasing estrangement between the humanities and the natural sciences. While strict disciplinary boundaries have indeed facilitated more specialized inquiry, excessive indulgence in constructing new concepts, creating new oppositions, and seeking new distinctions within narrow professional fields may transform education and learning into sources of human self-alienation. Consequently, such intense specialization can isolate scholars from broader intellectual communities, limiting their ability to engage with diverse perspectives and diminishing their connection to the overarching purposes of their intellectual endeavors.

Although the differentiation of disciplines has accelerated the exponential growth of knowledge across various fields, it has also positioned philosophy and science as rivals competing for discursive authority rather than collaborators. On one hand, obscure philosophical theories have become symbols for cultural elites to display their sophistication; on the other hand, natural scientists are more inclined to trust the ‘truths’ revealed by experimental instruments than to engage with abstruse metaphysical questions. Amid the surge of scientific rationality, even the philosopher Moritz Schlick (1882–1936), a key figure in the Vienna Circle, advocated for the elimination of metaphysics, arguing that philosophy should concentrate on the logical analysis of scientific language.

Beyond the Opposition: An Alternative Possibility for Philosophy and Science

Does the relationship between philosophy and science need to be one of mutual non-interference or even rivalry? History is replete with examples where philosophy and science have mutually inspired one another. In 1755, the philosopher Immanuel Kant completed Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, in which he proposed what came to be known as the Kant-Laplace nebular hypothesis. From the 1990s to the present, with the advancement of astronomical observation technologies—particularly the development of space telescopes and radio telescopes—scientists have amassed substantial empirical data supporting the nebular hypothesis.

At the beginning of the 20th century, “the new science has pulled the rug out from under the very certainties science had apparently guaranteed. It has dissolved the very ground of this certainty into mere statistical probability and epistemological indeterminacy.” In such a tumultuous era, Henri Bergson transformed from a successful mathematician into an even more successful philosopher. He admitted that his interest in ‘duration’ was sparked by his mathematical research, which initially stemmed from his confusion about the ‘t-value’, or time, in mechanics equations. Furthermore, Bergson realized that his theory of matter— originating from his studies in physics and emphasizing the non-pictorial nature the matter—was often misunderstood or misinterpreted. In 1938, he remarked with a hint of wistfulness: “Nobody, with a possible exception of the profound mathematician and philosopher Whitehead, noticed […] that this was for me something essential which was closely related to my theory of duration and which lay in the direction in which physics would move sooner or later.”

Perhaps somewhat naively yet compellingly, I wish to invoke Marx’s famous dictum: “every true philosophy is the intellectual quintessence of its time,” and “philosophers do not spring up like mushrooms out of the ground; they are products of their time, of their nation, whose most subtle, valuable and invisible juices flow in the ideas of philosophy.” Philosophers are supposed to maintain a high degree of enthusiasm and interest in all the novel aspects of their era, including the latest developments in science. These innovations provide philosophers with abundant material for contemplation, inspiring them to engage in highly abstract and generalizing work, distilling the intuitions and imaginations of their contemporaries.

Merleau-Ponty: A Thinker at the Intersection of Philosophy and Science

To explore the ways in which philosophy and science intersect and the outcomes of such interactions, this article focus on the insightful philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. I aim to demonstrate that Merleau-Ponty, as a professional philosopher, actually possessed an in-depth understanding of the cutting-edge sciences of his time. Moreover, he organically ‘integrated’ these scientific research findings into his philosophical thought. To more precisely explain the meaning of ‘integrated,’ we might consider that Merleau-Ponty, based on a profound understanding of frontier science, endeavored to create the ‘écart’ anew at the point where philosophy and science meet.

This article will point out that the anchoring point where Merleau-Ponty engaged with modern science always involves the discussion of ‘time.’ Before specifically exploring Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of time, it is necessary to illustrate the prospects of exploring time theories from both physical and philosophical perspectives:

First, the modern physicists’ ‘inability’ to assertively grapple with ‘time’ highlights the necessity for new ways to conceptualize time, or even spacetime. On one hand, modern physics has made tremendous progress in the dimension of ‘space.’ From the quantum scale to the cosmic scale, increasingly precise measurement methods and theoretical models have emerged. For example, quantum mechanics describes phenomena at the subatomic level, while general relativity explains the large-scale structure of the universe. Yet, compared to the promisingly refined research on space, physicists are still pondering the foundational question, “What is time?” For instance, Lee Smolin argues that time should be regarded as one of the most fundamental elements of the universe, rather than being derived from other physical quantities. Sean Carroll, combining thermodynamics, cosmology, and quantum mechanics, proposes the concept of the ‘arrow of time’—that time possesses a unidirectional nature, pointing from the past to the future—and that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is key to understanding this arrow of time. However, these theories remain as yet unverified conjectures and hypotheses.

The lack of consensus on the nature of time underscores the importance of philosophical reflection. When scientific methods encounter bottlenecks on certain fundamental issues, the abstract thinking and intuitive insights of philosophy may offer new perspectives and breakthroughs.

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, with significant breakthroughs in science and technologies, philosophical contemplation of time reached a new height. In this critical period, the contributions of Henri Bergson (1859–1941) were particularly outstanding. Bergson’s insights are pioneering because he transcended the mechanistic determinism that dominated scientific thought at the time, anticipating some core concepts in quantum physics. As noted by physicist Louis de Broglie, Bergson’s 1889 doctoral thesis, Time and Free Will [Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience], predates “by forty years the ideas of Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg regarding the physical interpretation of wave mechanics.” This assessment not only confirms the foresight of Bergson’s thought but also illustrates the potential inspirational role of philosophical intuition in scientific development. Thus, even if philosophers do not directly engage with mathematical formulas or precise instruments, by relying on well-trained intuition and keen imagination—and articulating these insights through rigorous argumentation—they may perceive some of the universe’s ‘secrets’ ahead of scientists.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961), who held the same philosophy professorship at the Collège de France as Bergson, not only inherited the focus on time from the history of philosophy and phenomenology, but also maintained a close dialogue with the latest scientific developments of his era. According to the three stages of Merleau-Ponty’s intellectual development, commonly recognized in academic circles, the scientific fields he engaged with became increasingly abstract: from empirical research—particularly experimental psychology—based on factual studies, to abstractions in the humanities and social sciences concerning society and history, and finally to the conceptualizations of space-time in physics and mathematics.

To explore the relationship between Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy and the natural sciences, this article takes his lecture notes titled Nature as the primary text. It aims to reveal how Merleau-Ponty, through a self-directed re-education in nature science, provided new frameworks and objectives for his philosophical inquiry. By examining the scientific theories addressed in Nature, we can better understand the key concepts drawn from physics and mathematics—such as ‘reversibility,’ ‘topology,’ and “the spatial and temporal pulp”—which seem to appear abruptly in The Visible and the Invisible.

Specifically, this article examines Merleau-Ponty’s reflection on time in his later philosophy and its profound connections with the natural sciences through the three key concepts mentioned above. The first focus is on the concept of ‘reversibility.’ Beginning with the notion of temporal reversibility in physics, the discussion will explore how Merleau-Ponty transforms this idea into a core philosophical concept that describes the interaction of ‘the flesh’ and ‘the depth.’ The second concept of inquiry involves the application of ‘topology’ in Merleau-Ponty’s thought, investigating the fundamental principles of topology in mathematics and clarifying how he employs this branch of mathematics to describe the complex and continuous relationship between humans and the world. Lastly, the influence of quantum mechanics on Merleau-Ponty’s view of time is analyzed. By addressing the transformation and application of these scientific concepts in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, the aim is to reveal how he constructed a unique theory of time that integrates scientific insights with philosophical speculation. So to speak, his discussion on time not only reflects his deep understanding of contemporary science but also embodies his effort to maintain critical thinking and engage in creative thought at the intersection of science and philosophy.

In conclusion, this article presents Merleau-Ponty as an enthusiastic observer of science—a dimension often underappreciated in scholarly discourse. By emphasizing the natural scientific foundations of his later reflections on time, this analysis demonstrates how his work offers a methodology for exploring the blurred boundaries between the humanities and the natural sciences. As a rigorous and erudite scholar, Merleau-Ponty sought to identify and create intervals—gaps of reflection—within the broader convergence of philosophy and science, while remaining vigilant against the uncritical embrace of scientific fervor that characterized his time.