The Philosophy of Ontological Lateness

Addressing Merleau-Ponty''s work Phenomenology of Perception in dialogue with The Visible and the Invisible, his lectures at the Collège de France, and his reading of Proust, this book argues that at play in his thought is a philosophy of "ontological lateness". This describes the manner in which philosophical reflection is fated to lag behind its objects and, therefore, an absolute grasp on being remains beyond its reach. This lateness is due to the extent to which reflection finds itself in the grip of a deflagration and splitting open of sense, a deflagration articulated through the unfurling of temporal flux. Insofar as temporality by its very nature never achieves the density of completed being, it constitutes not only the delay of reflection behind its object but also ontological lateness, the lateness of expressivity to being. Merleau-Ponty articulates this philosophy against the backdrop of what he calls "cruel thought", a style of reflecting that seeks resolution by limiting, circumscribing, and arresting its object. By contrast, the philosophy of ontological lateness seeks no such final unveiling-no apocalypsis-but is characterized by its ability to accept the veiling-the calypsis-of being and its own constitutive lack of punctuality. To this extent, his thinking inaugurates a new relation to the becoming of sense that overcomes cruel thought. Philia-sophia, loving wisdom, is no longer understood as possession of anything-not of knowledge, truth, the other, or even of oneself. Rather, Merleau-Ponty''s work gives voice to a wisdom of dispossession that allows for the withdrawal of being. Never before has anyone engaged with the theme of Merleau-Ponty''s own understanding of philosophy in such a sustained way as Whitmoyer does in this volume.