Body,thought, being-human and artificial intelligence: Merleau-Ponty and Lyotard

Abstract

This article focuses in a comparative manner on the thought of Merleau-Ponty and Lyotard with a view to lending support to Busch’s claim, that ‘existentialism’ preceded poststructuralism and postmodernism as far as criticism of certain features of modem philosophy are concerned. Attention is first given to Lyotard’s critique of artificial intelligence, especially in so far as it displays a dependence on and development of insights on the part of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological-existential understanding of human embodiment and the specificity of human perception. The focus then shifts to Merleau-Ponty in order to demonstrate the remarkable extent to which his understanding of human embodiment and related issues such as perception and creativity, paved the way for the work of, among others, Lyotard, and anticipated the critique of artificial intelligence on the part of the latter.