SOURCE: Charlesworth, James H. “Reflections on Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenological Description of ‘Word.’” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 30, no. 4 (June 1970): 609-13.

In the following essay, Charlesworth examines Merleau-Ponty's concept of words and their meanings.

What is a word? What is the relation of word to thought? Where do words come from? What is the place of words in our lives? These are some of the questions which will be confronted in the following pages. There are two interrelated sections of this essay: the first is a dialogue with Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological observations, and the second contains a few of my own reflections.¹

Against the empiricist and intellectualist conception that the word has no significance, that it is only, “The external sign of an internal recognition, which could take place without it, and to which it makes no contribution,” Merleau-Ponty correctly argues that the word has a meaning. He bases his position upon...