The Machiavellian Legacy in Merleau-Ponty: a Reading About the Conflictive Constitution of the Political

Abstract

This paper aims to restore, from the political thought of Merleau-Ponty, the rightful place of conflict. To achieve this hypothetical premise it is necessary to consider some issues that are woven into possible readings of the origin or foundation of politics. First, tracing back to the original cartesian proposition that the body is related with extensive substance invalid when detecting who we are. Then, considering the reading Merleau-Ponty makes of Machiavelli considering the notion of riot or mass under a conflicting structure of politics in relation to the subject. In this regard, it is noted from this reading, the conditions proposed by Merleau-Ponty to highlight the importance of the singular in a politically shared space. And finally, to understand these problem areas of the history of philosophy as their own "world of life" where the contingent has a particular sense understood as the ontological place of the practical subject. Thus, in this context, it is possible to reconcile from Merleau-Ponty in the area of the contingent, body and language; what is felt and thought; perceived and settled. To understand the features of sedimentation helps to the formation of the localized subject; that is, it habituated or instituted.