The next talk in the online speaker series Merleau-Ponty: Nature and Logos. March 12 2025. All are welcome to join!
Online talk: Mariana Larison, Nature and Logos: The path of a phenomenology of institution
Announcing the next talk in the online speaker series Merleau-Ponty: Nature and Logos. The speaker will be Marian Larison, with a talk titled “Nature and Logos: The path of a phenomenology of institution.” The abstract can be found below. All are welcome to join!
Date: March 12 – 9:00 EDT / *14:00 CET / 21:00 HKT
(Please note the time change for participants in Europe.)
Registration: https://haydenkee.com/research/speaker-series-merleau-ponty-nature-and-logos-january-to-june-2025/
(If you have already registered for previous talks in the series, you don’t need to register again.)
Speaker: Mariana Larison (University of Buenos Aires)
Title: Nature and Logos: The path of a phenomenology of institution
Abstract: A philosophical reflection on the notions of nature and logos confronts us with one of the most important problems of our epoch. On this lecture, we would like to explore a possible reading of this problematic, that offered by a phenomenology of institution. This proposal could, however, seem surprising: isn’t nature usually defined by its opposition to the human-spiritual world, to the order of culture or to political praxis? Isn’t nature usually opposed to the order of what is instituted? Against this classical idea, we would like to show here, on the basis of the Merleau-Pontian concept of institution, a phenomenological approach to nature which, far from opposing nature and logos in the classical way, offers us a transcending alternative that goes beyond these dualisms. In order to develop this hypothesis, we will establish, in the first place, the fundamental elements of the Husserlian idea of nature. Then, in the second place, we will point out some problems associated with this first formulation. This will allow us, in the third place, to track the Merleau-Pontian reading of what we might call the “second phenomenological idea of nature”. Finally, we will point out the relevance of a phenomenology of the institution for our conceptual network “nature and logos”.