Deus e ontologia na perspectiva de Merleau-Ponty

Abstract

The present study investigates how Merleau-Ponty sees the relation between God and ontology from the interpretation done by this author about the modern ontology and how, from the retaking of this tradition, he places himself according to God´s problem in the development of his understanding of the Being, specially in the second moment of his work. According to Merleau-Ponty, the modern philosophers, specially those who take part of something he calls “ the great rationalism”, were involved with some thesis of the Judaeo-Christian theology, that deeply influenced the way these philosophers understood the being, many times, confusing it with God. The conceptual categories resulting from this ontology bring out a dualist conception of the real, that, according to the French philosopher is insufficient to describe the phenomena as they manifest themselves. Therefore, Merleau-Ponty insists about the necessity to overcome the traditional ontology. Because of this he suggests a return to ontology, to develop a new conception of being, without any commitment with theology even with the creation of new conceptual categories. Analysing, in this way, the conception of Being developed by Merleau-Ponty, we can understand that, in may aspects, it is far away from the modern idea of being, however, the primordial Being he describes, will retake some of the main parts of the modern ontology´s God.