Abstract

The following thesis is first of all an attempt to explore the relationship between what Merleau-Ponty calls the "perceptual faith"--generally understood as a prereflective faith in the perceived world as real and in common--and reflection or 'intellectual consciousness'. The suggestion will be that the objectivism operative in everyday perception acts as an irresistible model for the presumption of a purely reflective activity. Insofar as there is an argument it is located in the section on perceptual faith. There an effort is made to show that while it is a perceiving, situated subject that has faith in the perceived as real, that is, in others as co-inhabitants of a common world, this faith, what Merleau-Ponty sometimes calls a "natal pact," because it is anonymous, because the subject is inserted or "buried in the world," should be understood as testifying to and being 'honored' by or made possible vis-a-vis the surrounding world, which we have called a "world of institutions" or "work of faith."