State University of New York at Stony Brook
Department of Philosophy
2014 Lecture Series
You are cordially invited to a
lecture by
Gabrielle Jackson
Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, School of Social
Science, in Princeton
Lecture:
“On Motor-Intentionality in Maurice MerleauPonty's Phenomenology of Perception”
Gabrielle Benette Jackson is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, School of
Social Science, in Princeton, New Jersey. She earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2011
and held the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Toronto, Jackman Humanities Institute,
from 2011-2013. Gabrielle's work appears (and is forthcoming) in Merleau-Ponty at the Limits of Art, Religion and
Perception, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, and European Journal of Philosophy.
Throughout his books and essays, the French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty makes use of the concept
of motor intentionality. This concept is key to recent work, for instance, concerning the embodied mind thesis.
Drawing from Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of a neuropathological patient who lacked motor intentionality, I argue for
changes to current practice and interpretation. Relying on Merleau-Ponty's unique answer to the question, "what we
can learn about the normal from the pathological?" I offer an understanding of motor intentionality as unifying
consciousness and movement, by enacting two distinct ways for the body to be oriented towards the world.
Thursday February 20th, 2014
5:00 pm
Harriman Hall 214
Reception to Follow
Harriman Hall, Stony Brook, NY 11794-3750 – Telephone 631-632-7570 Fax 631-632-7522