Eye and Spirit

Eye and Mind is the last text Merleau-Ponty wrote during his two or three months in the Provençal countryside, in Tholonet, and which he managed to finish during his lifetime. Tholonet is a beautiful place, much loved by Cézanne and the subject of many of his paintings, giving one the feeling it was made for people to settle down and live in. The author penned this text while enjoying his days there, but also, in front of the Tholonet landscape forever bearing the traces of Cézanne's eyes, by re-examining painting and "seeing" anew. In Eye and Mind, one of the most beautiful and challenging texts of our century, the philosopher sets out to search for the initial, the primordial words: for example, words capable of naming the "seeing" of the body, what constitutes the miracle of the human body, the inexplicable vitality of the human body... and of course, at the same time, words that can express the fragility of this miracle...