Merleau-Ponty has long been known as one of the most important philosophers of aesthetics, yet most discussions of his aesthetics focus on visual art. This book corrects that balance by turning to Merleau-Ponty's extensive engagement with literature.
Leading Merleau-Ponty scholars state and interpret the philosopher's later ontology of flesh and reversibility, some defending and some challenging its accommodation of alterity and difference. Claude Lefort's seminal lecture criticizing Merleau-Ponty's treatment of otherness in The Visible and the Invisible and two previously untranslated essays by Emmanual Levinas shape this dialogue.