La communication entre soi et l'autre selon Merleau-Ponty

Abstract

In the experience of dialogue, a common ground is constituted between others and me, my thoughts and theirs form a single fabric, my words and those of my interlocutor are called by the state of the discussion. They are part of a common operation of which none of us is the creator. There is a being of two there, and the other is no longer for me a simple behavior in my transcendental field, nor for that matter I in his, we are collaborators for each other in perfect reciprocity, our perspectives slide into each other, we coexist through the same world. In the present dialogue, I am freed from myself, the thoughts of others are indeed my own thoughts, it is not me who forms them, although I seize them as soon as they are born or anticipate them, and even, the objection that the interlocutor makes to me snatches from me thoughts that I did not know I possessed, so that if I attribute thoughts to him, he makes me think in return. It is only afterwards, when I have withdrawn from the dialogue, and remember it, that I can reintegrate it into my life, make it an episode of my private history, and that others

enters into its absence, or, to the extent that it remains present to me, is felt as a threat to me.