Differences of the Concept of World and the Concept of Experience in Kant's and Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy

Abstract

The aim of the article is the analysis concerning the relationship between the conceptions of  „experience” and „world” in the transcendental-philosophical oeuvre of Immanuel Kant and the phenomenological approach of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In accordance with this issue, the argumentations of the two philosophers show fundamental differences. According to the Critique of pure Reason the sphere of cognizable objects is conceived as an a priori determined system. Merleau-Ponty, elaborating his genuine theory – called “the ontology of primordial openness”, eliminates the frameworks of the Kantian view and interprets the relation between the subject and the world under circumstances in which entities does not have a solid shape and order. His method reveals the primordial essence of philosophy that was hidden by the manifold of discursive theories during the history of western philosophy. Merleau-Ponty argues that the traditional metaphysical argumentations should be replaced by the ontology of the „Savage” that leads the philosopher back to the authentic dimensions of being and thinking.