How to deal with objectivity? An appraisal of Merleau-Ponty's reading of Durkheim

Carlos Belvedere

Chapter 20 in The Elgar Companion to Émile Durkheim, 2026, pp 350-366 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: My purpose is to expose, assess, and interpret Merleau-Ponty's reading of Durkheim. With a descriptive aim, I will review all meaningful passages on the French sociologist in his work. I will also appraise them, highlighting the personal, creative aspects of Merleau-Ponty's reading. And I will provide an overall interpretation of what its different stages disclose as a whole. The passages to be commented on were published in three different moments, in 1948, 1953, and 1959–1960. The first are critical, the following ones find a dialectical-phenomenological meaning in Durkheim's work, and the last ones make of him the ultimate expression of macrophenomenology in sociology. I will also draw a common thread along these stages, which is the struggle with objectivism. As his reading of Durkheim evolved, Merleau-Ponty delivered more complex, insightful views on what objectivism has to offer to the phenomenologist's eye.

Keywords: Social facts; Suicide; Objectivism; Dialectics; Macrophenomenon; Intertwining (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035322923
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