World, Passivity and Difference. A Reflection through Descartes and Merleau-Ponty

Federica Frattaroli

The paper aims at showing how Descartes includes the objects and the world perception into his metaphysical reflection, connecting his concept of movement and passivity in his scientific works, to res cogitans. The field of the passions of the soul can disclose, thanks to admiration, the sense of a rising world that moves against the human body and the soul. Th is point can be related to Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological reflection on perception, body and expression, fi nding out passivity as a deep transcendental motif.

62s-frattaroli

Keywords: escartes · Merleau-Ponty · perception · the world · passivity · emotions · metaphysics · expression