Imagining Bodies: Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy of Imagination

The book demonstrates how Maurice Merleau-Pobty's understanding of the body has broad implications for philosophy, aesthetics and the social sciences. By examining Merleau-Ponty's analysis of the body as a dialectic of habituation and creativity, Steeves unveils a deeper relation between self and the world that is meditated by images of embodiment. This creative embodiment forms the basis for all forms of imagining, including fanciful thinking, perception, aesthetic production and psychopathology. The book is a testament to the importance of the body and the imagination of our perception of reality at a time when the philosophy of the body is associated with metaphysical presence.