Not to explain, to understand

Merleau-Ponty and the limits of human sciences

Abstract

Maurice Merleau-Ponty dedicated his work to the dialogue between phenomenology and the human sciences, notably articulating the contributions that modern linguistics brought to philosophical thought. “The Philosopher and Sociology” is a text in which the author contrasts the dilemmas that the phenomenological method imposes on the scientific understanding of the human and the consequent risk of determinism and reductionism to which such a scientific endeavor is susceptible. In this text, we aim to show how Merleau-Ponty articulates the notions of understanding and explanation to clarify how the human cannot be explained scientifically, but only understood, revisiting Dilthey’s famous distinction. This observation is of particular importance for the human sciences, as it delimits the scope of their epistemological possibilities and, moreover, grants philosophy a specific and irreplaceable task of initiating and deepening the lived experience of the world.