The Problem of the foundation of Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology or: How could Engen Fink have influenced him?
Abstract
This paper aims neither to deny the originality of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology toward the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl nor to claim his affiliation to Eugen Fink, just like Bryan Smith once accused Ronald Bruzina of doing. The present investigation concerns the dialogue between Merleau-Ponty and Eugen Fink as it happened when both met at the Husserl Archives in Louvain in 1939, after the death of Edmund Husserl.
At first, it is necessary to clarify some affirmations made by Merleau-Ponty already in his preface to the work "Phenomenology of Perception", which substanciate many traces of his meeting with Fink and his ideas, even before Merleau-Ponty's involvement with the phenomenology itself. After that, we will try to stress the importance of Fink's contribution in the development of the phenomenology after Husserl's death, i.e, the post-husserlian phenomenology.
This central role played by Fink has been forgotten for a long time due to the difficulties his doctoral studies and his work in general has faced among the German politics from the Third Reich and even in the period after the WWII.