Toward a Phenomenology of The Other World: This World as It Is for No One in Particular

In the working notes to The Visible and the Invisible, Merleau-Ponty uses punctum caecum (physiological blind spot) as a metaphor for the unconscious and the invisible of the visible. I read the punctum caecum alongside Merleau-Ponty's call in another working note to [e]laborate a phenomenology of the other world. I take up a phenomenology of the other world as directed toward the punctum caecum of this world. I begin with a discussion of Merleau-Ponty's unconscious and continue its unfinished thought by drawing in other iterations of the punctum caecum - the involuntary memories in Marcel Proust's, In Search of Lost Time, the punctum Roland Barthes finds in Camera Lucida and in words that refer to other worlds. Among Merleau-Ponty, Proust, and Barthes I sense something shared - a latent intentionality, and a question about mourning expressed across their disparate texts: the other who existed once, do they exist still? The other who looked at me once, do they look at me still?

Automated summary

This article explores the concept of the "physiological blind spot" as a metaphor for the unconscious and the invisible world, using the works of Merleau-Ponty, Proust, and Barthes. It examines the shared themes of questioning existence and observation of others across these different texts.