Consciousness and the Acquisition of Language: Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy

MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY (1908–1961) was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Karl Marx, Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger in addition to being closely associated with Jean-Paul Sartre (who later stated he had been "converted" to Marxism by Merleau-Ponty ) and Simone de Beauvoir. At the core of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy is a sustained argument for the foundational role that perception plays in understanding the world as well as engaging with the world. Like the other major phenomenologists, Merleau-Ponty expressed his philosophical insights in writings on art, literature, linguistics, and politics. He was the only major phenomenologist of the first half of the twentieth century to engage extensively with the sciences and especially with descriptive psychology.

Foreword by James M. Edie
Translator's Preface

Introduction
[I] The Problem of Language
[II] Methodology

1/ The Psychological Development of Language in the Child
[I] An Overview
[II] The Acquisition of Language during the First Year
[III] The Acquisition of Language in the First Five Years
[IV] The Appropriation of Linguistic Structures
[V] Evolution of Language to Seven Years
[VI] Communication between Children over Seven

2/ The Pathology of Language
[I] Introductory Comments
[II] Verbal Hallucination
[III] The Study of Aphasia

3/ The Contribution of Linguistics
[I] Introduction
[II] The Study of Linguistics
[III] Philosophical Implications

Index

The tools, concepts, and vocabulary of phenomenology are used in this book to explore language in a multitude of contexts.