Shame and Merleau-Ponty’s Turn to Nature

Chapter 6 begins to explicate Merleau-Ponty’s late ontology that he developed in large part as an answer to Sartre. This chapter goes deeper into his ontology of nature, “the object from which we have arisen,” to provide a grounding for a phenomenology of shame. The chapter explores his seminal notion of flesh, its connection to Schelling’s critique of modern philosophy, its similarities to Heidegger’s critique of a technological conception of nature, Nature as the ground of intercorporeity and empathy, and an account of Scheler’s concept of bodily shame. In regard to the latter, the chapter articulates Paul Ricoeur’s “anthropology of fallibility,” shame, and how his account of the lived body closely tracks Merleau-Ponty’s earlier writings and serves as an effective critique of Scheler. Shame, disgust, and the aging body also come into the discussion, as well as Gabriel Marcel’s defense of “the naturalist” as the contemporary saint. The chapter also examines the connections between nakedness, nudity, and shame in continuing the critique of Scheler as well as the significance of the face, and Merleau-Ponty’s likely response to Freud in regard to infantile shame.