El pliegue y el quiasmo. Merleau-­‐‑Ponty y Gilles Deleuze

Abstract

We   start   from   the   question   of   how   significant   are   the

differences   between   the   philosophies   of   Gilles   Deleuze   and

Maurice   Merleau-­‐‑Ponty.   Rather   than   emphasizing   the

similarities  or  dissimilarities  between  the  two,  we  argue  that

between   these   thinkers   there   is   a   kind   of   "ʺrelay"ʺ,   in   which

Merleau-­‐‑Ponty   anticipates   in   his   last   writings   certain

possible   developments   of   philosophical   thought,   some   of

which   become   actual   in   Deleuze'ʹs   work   (without   ignoring,

of   course,   the   specific   contexts   in   which   their   respective

ideas  arise).  We  will  pay  special  attention  to  themes  shared

by  these  thinkers,  such  as  their  assessment  of  structuralism,

their   critique   and   transcendence   of   the   "ʺphilosophy   of

conscience"ʺ   (reflexive   subjectivism),   and   their   openness   to

an  ontology  of  immanence,  concrete  and  dynamic,  centered

on  the  notion  of  "ʺlife"ʺ  (in  the  manner  of  Bergson)  rather  than

on  the  notion  of  "ʺBeing"ʺ  (in  the  manner  of  Heidegger).