Merleau-Ponty argues that our encounter with otherness precedes conscious thought and language. We first encounter others through anonymous interactions with cultural objects used by invisible others. This pre-cognitive encounter with primordial otherness structures our subjectivity, as the other completes our experience of a shared world. For Merleau-Ponty, the lived body of the other exhibits behaviors like our own, allowing us to perceive the other not just as an object but as a subject. Our encounter with the other draws us out of ourselves and integrates us into their world, demonstrating that subjectivity arises from an implicit unity with others, rather than as distinct individuals.

1. Merleau-Ponty On Our Primordial Encounter With Otherness
“In the culturalobject, I feel the closepresenceof others beneath a veil of
anonymity. Someoneuses thepipe for smoking, thespoon for eating, the bell for
summon-ing, and itis through the perception of a human act and another person
that the perception of a cultural world could be verified.” (405)
For Merleau-Ponty, any encounter with an Other is preceded by a pre-cognitive,
pre-linguistic encounter with otherness in the formof anonymous others whom
we encounter as a partof an objectively shared word. No longer theresimply for
me, the world and the things found therein immediately pointus to others. When
these others appear, our objectively apprehended world gets sucked into their
sphereof influence, and we looseour position at the center of the world. As
Merleau-Ponty describes:
“Round aboutthe [Other’s] perceived body a vortexforms, towards which my
world is drawn and, so to speak, sucked in: to this extent, it is no longer merely
mine, and no longer merely present, it is presentto x, to that other manifestation
of behaviour which begins to take shapein it. Already the other body has ceased
to be a mere fragmentof the world, and becomethe theatre of a certain process
of elaboration, and, as it were, a certain ‘view’ of the world. Thereis taking place
over there a certain manipulation of things hitherto my property. Someoneis
making useof my familiar objects. Butwho can it be? (411–12)
The mere existence of an Other takes us outside of our bodies and ourselves. The
Other is a theater for the elaboration of a drama not of our own making. As we are
drawn into their world of concern, weforgetourselves and our concerns. We
come to be out there in the world, and as Merleau-Ponty suggests, theworld
comes to inhabit us. The other doesn’tjustpresentus with the data of other
consciousnesses, buttheother affects us and acts upon us, as if lovestricken.

2. The LivedBody and the Other
The Other is firstof all perceived as a body, butthis body is no mere object. The
lived body of subjects is characterized by thereversibility of being both objectand
subjectsimultaneously. (For example, think of how you can simultaneously grasp
your own hand, and be both grasping and grasped.)A specialkind of object, the
lived body of the other exhibits behaviors much likeour own. More specifically, it
can leave marks and traces as vestiges, and produces thespacein which it moves
by shaping its environment. In a somewhatcryptic butvery suggestivepassage,
Merleau-Ponty writes:
“The very firstof all cultural objects, and the one by which all the restexist, is the
body of the other person as the vehicle of a formof behaviour. Whether it be a
question of vestiges or the body of another person, weneed to know how an
objectin space can become the eloquent relic of an existence; how, conversely, an
intention, a thoughtor a projectcan detach themselves fromthe personalsubject
and becomevisible out- side him in the shapeof his body, and in the environment
which he builds for himself.” (406)
As a cultural artifact, the body of the Other can be interpreted or read for its
significance. Thesimplest way to understand this is to takethe example of the
athlete or the dancer, off of whosebodies wecan read the athleticism and poise
produced through theway they usetheir bodies. Their bodies arean expression of
their life’s work. Or wemay read the calloused worker’shands to mean that they
world work with their hands. Even the lack of marks and traces says something
aboutthe other….
Furthermore, bodily attitudes communicatesomething aboutour psychological
state — for example, if weare feeling defeated, we slump in our frames; when we
are excited, our bodies exude with energy. If wearepricked, our facial expression

3. and bodily wincing can communicate that sharp, sudden experienceof pain. So
bodies, like inert objects, can be “read” for the significancethat they communicate
againsta culturalbackdrop. In fact, our bodies may communicateand know what
we havenot (or cannot) consciously register,even againstour wishes.
Finally, Merleau-Ponty heresuggests thatthe environmentin which wefind
ourselves and others is produced, in part, through the Other’s activities in and
through that space. Weare not justsucked into a psychologicalvortexwhen we
encounter others, butthe vortexmay well be physical, around a whirlof activity
not our own. Itis as if our bodies arepencils that leave marks and traces, and that
shapethe spacewe inhabit.
How Our Encounter WithPrimordial Otherness StructuresOur Subjectivities
Prior to conscious thought, prior to an exchangewith a particular Other, the
human world is there for us. There is no human world that does not always
already include others, and it would be very difficult to imagine a meaningful
world devoid of others. This is whereMerleau-ponty makes his biggest
move: primordialothernessstructuresmy subjectivity becausetheOther comes
across as completing a system. Merleau-Ponty re-narrates theencounter with
otherness as follows:
“I say thatit is another, a second self, and this I know in the firstplace becausethis
living body has the samestructureas mine. I experience my own body as the
power of adopting certain forms of behaviour and a certain world, and I am given
to myself merely as a certain hold upon the world; now, it is precisely my body
which perceives the body of another, and discovers in thatother body a
miraculous prolongation of my own intentions, a familiar way of deal- ing with the
world. Henceforth, as theparts of my body together compromisea system, so my
body and the other’s areone whole, two sides of one and the same phenomenon,

4. and the anonymous existenceof which my body is the ever-renewed trace
henceforth inhabits both bodies simultaneously.” (411–12)
Much like I recognizethatall the parts of my body arranged in working order make
up the unity I call my body, the hereto anonymous Other forms a partof the unity
of the world in which I find myself, and is in fact a necessary condition for my
coming to consciousnessas a subject.
In this way, Merleau-Ponty gets back behind Husserl’slifeworld to suggesta prior
encounter with otherness as a condition for the possibility for subjectivity. We are
notfirst of all distinct from thisworld and others, butform a unity with them from
which we later come to separate outour own individualsubjective sense of
self. Any encounter with a specific Other has as its backdrop a primordial
encounter with, or connection to otherness.
Merleau-Ponty puts it mostclearly in the following quote:
“Between my consciousnessand my body as I experienceit, between this
phenomenalbody of mine and that of another as I seeit fromthe outside, there
exists an internal relation which causes theother to appear as the completion of
the system. Theother can be evident to me becauseI am not transparentfor
myself, and becausemy subjectivity draws its body in its wake.” (410)
And later he will add this:
“In reality, the other is not shutup insidemy perspectiveof the world, because
this perspectiveitself has no definite limits, becauseit slips spontaneously into the
other’s, and becauseboth are broughttogether in the one single world in which
we all participate as anonymous subjectsof perception.” (411)

5. The word “imbricated” is often used to describethis situation, and this
phenomenologicaldescription is meant to give a new starting point fromwhich to
overcomethe problemof solipsism —of a subjectthat is shutup in itself. The
reality of the solipsistic subject’sworld is in question precisely becauseit cannot
be verified. (Husserlpreserves thesubject/objectinside/outsidedivision intactin
his account, a strategic solipsim he adopts in over to overcomeit, but arguably his
transcendentalsubjectis never able to fully overcomethe split.) Merleau-Ponty
overcomes themind/body subject/objectsplitby denying it outright, arguing that
the body/self is simultaneously subjectand object, and that “the world is wholly
inside and I am wholly outsideof myself.” (474)
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Quotes Source: Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception(New York:
Routledge) 2005.