Merleau-Ponty: Exploring ‘I Can’ vs ‘I Think’ | Language, Absolutes and Selfness

Merleau-Ponty supplants I think with I can. Instead of I think, therefore I am; I can, therefore there’s the world. I can is a capabilities matrix, a span of imagination and ability. It can have directedness. But it doesn’t have guaranteed outcomes or a clear path. I can doesn’t mean I actually can. It means I can try.

“Right,” says Keggerman, “it’s gotta mean that?”

SURFACES
We have different capabilities. We have different worlds. Different worlds we can try in, operate in. Can our goals be the same? Are goals what can unite | separate us? How deep is the subjectivity, grounded in different capabilities | grounded in what define our experiences, our worlds, our time and space (field | surfaces) in which we are trying. Can language unite | separate by defining the bounds | boundaries | shape (help shape)? Language and consideration, kindness | awareness of self and others -> towards an end, a goal of shaping, creating space field -> for others, in one’s self. Or not: for self, in others.

In that: absolutes absolve difference. Ground in for self, in others. Definitionally: selfish. Compare to: otherish.

EXCAVATION
Phenomenology of Perception (Part One, Section III: The Spatiality of One’s Own Body and Motricity) by Maurice Merleau-Ponty