The Visible and the Invisible in the Interplay between Philosophy, Literature and Reality (Analecta Husserliana, 75)

Merleau-Ponty's categories of the visible and the invisible are investigated afresh and with originality in this penetrating collection of literary and philosophical inquiries. Going beyond the traditional and current references to the mental and the sensory, mind and body, perceptual content and the abstract ideas conveyed in language, etc., these studies range from the 'hidden spheres of reality', to the play of the visible and the invisible left as traces in works of human genius, the origins of intellect and language, the real and the imaginary in literature, and the 'hidden realities' in the philosophy of the everyday world. These literary and philosophical probings collectively reveal the role of this disjoined/conjoined pairing in the ontopoietic establishment of reality, that is, in the manifestation of the logos of life. In tandem they bring to light the hidden play of the visible and the invisible in the emergence of our vital, societal, intimate, intellectual, and creative involvements. The appearance of Merleau-Ponty's posthumous work under the title The Visible and the Invisible electrified the philosophical imagination.