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Thanks to it, we manage to show how thisexperience of non-discrimination between perception and imagination istransferred by Merleau-Ponty further from the specificity of the encounter with theOther-subject onto the encounter with the world in general. Having explained inthis part of the course the unconscious by analogy with an excess of perception(perception including also non-thetic zones which under certain conditions can beapprehended), Merleau-Ponty began to explain this very excess of perception inthe terms of unconscious, and together with it, also in the terms of the imagined.As we try to show, it was at this very moment when Merleau-Ponty switched hisinterest from the study of the place of the real in the imagined to that of theimagined in the real, that his argument became a really strong criticism of Sartre.The question is however, in this case, to determine the role of the visible and thesubject.Building on Merleau-Ponty's later works (in particular, “Eye and Mind”), wemake an attempt to illustrate how, together with this crucial interweaving ofimagination into the canvas of perception, Merleau-Ponty integrates the experienceof the Other-subject into relations with the world in general, how the motive of the“gaze of things” thus arises and how, finally, the figure of the Other appears toface the threat of indiscernibility/disappearance in the flesh of the world.

In theconclusion to this section, it is argued that the most consistent criticism of Sartre's“perception/imagination” opposition leads Merleau-Ponty to undermining thedistinction between the visibility of the Other-subject and the visibility of a thingwhich in his later texts is actually endowed the gaze in the context of his idea ofvision as of mutual exchange of visibilities/gaze.

Thus, the visibility of perceptionimagination of Merleau-Ponty's late texts, alternative to the Sartre’s oppositionbetween them, leaves us halfway between the visibility of the object and the24visibility of the subject (subjects).In section 2.2, building on the material of Merleau-Ponty's late unfinishedworks (mainly “The Visible and the Invisible” and working notes to it), we analyzehis unconventional theoretical endeavor to elaborate an ontology relevant to hisconception of the visible and revising Sartre's dualism. In paragraph 2.2.1, thecriticism by Merleau-Ponty of Sartre's sharp opposition between conscience andthe object is linked to Merleau-Ponty's development of a new approach tooppositions overcoming, concretized in his unprecedented concept of “flesh of theworld”.

The peculiarity of this new approach consists in that at this stage MerleauPonty, instead of thinking the common in terms of a “mixture” of two oppositeelements(asforexampleinthecaseofhisanswertoSartre's“imagination/perception” opposition), postulates the common as a more primarybasis, the polarization of which provides the very opposition. Such innovativeapproach, as we show, appears especially relevant for the task of theorizing thevisibility as something in common for the seeing subject and the visible world, assomething shared by them and dividing them.

And nevertheless, under a closerconsideration, it becomes obvious that the position of the subject in relation to the“flesh of the world” becomes, at that, hardly definable. In the absence ofsomething similar to the theory of subjectivization, that is, an explanation of howthe subject arises/appears out of the general “flesh of the world”, distinguishingher/himself from a thing/object, Merleau-Ponty finds himself submitted to thenecessity to resort to the rudiments of the phenomenology of conscience to explainthe activity of the seer. At that, this activity turns out to be hardly reconcilable withhis radical decision to assume the “flesh of the world” as a theoretical reference.This thesis is promoted progressively as we analyze the nodal points of MerleauPonty’s argumentation.

In paragraph 2.2.2., first of all, the controversial idea of“incomplete reversibility” of the vision both in its continuity and in a breach withHusserl's idea of a “double contact”. Secondly, in paragraph 2.2.3, it is shown thatthe activity of the seer remains a practical assumption in this idea, without beingthematized explicitly and actually denied by it. Thirdly, in paragraph 2.2.4 we25show an inconsistency between the point of view of the philosophy of consciencepresupposed by this activity and the point of view of the flesh of the worldphilosophy, the link between them, in case of Merleau-Ponty, being the concept of“flesh”, as we show relying on the comments by Renaud Barbaras.

Thisinconsistency is illustrated by an example of practical impossibility to acceptsimultaneously the two points of view – that of the seer and that of the seen, thathis model of seeing presupposes. Fourthly, in paragraph 2.2.5, we analyze thetopology of chiasm, as, according to the generally accepted interpretation, itovercomes these contradictions. It is shown, also with reliance on the works byBarbaras, that the idea of chiasm not only fails to overcome the inconsistencybetween the positions of the seer and the seen, but also, superimposing two aspectsof the problem (seer-seen/seen-seer), it actually duplicates this contradiction.In paragraph 2.2.6, we also analyze a fragment of an unfinished course oflectures by Merleau-Ponty “The Cartesian ontology and the ontology of today” asan alternative approach to the subject's visibility.

In this course, Merleau-Pontyproposes an unorthodox reading of Descartes' cogito. His existentialisticinterpretation from this course presents the сogito as a particular self-manifestationof the subject (the vision of the invisible), distinct from the vision-knowledgedescribed by Descartes, for example, in “Rules for the Direction of the Mind” or“Dioptrics”. In the interpretation of Merleau-Ponty, it appears as a peculiardescription of the subject's visibility, lacking in "The Visible and the invisible", butat the same time, as we show, it enters into complex and controversial relationswith the ontology of the flesh of the world, the same as those of the rudiments ofconscience in “The Visible and the invisible”.

Inspired by the ontology of “TheVisible and the invisible”, this interpretation of Descartes appears hardlyreconcilable it.In the conclusions to this chapter, we state that in his unfinished works,Merleau-Ponty not so much designs a theoretical field in which the dualism of thesubject and the object could simultaneously be overcome as dualism and remain asa distinction, but rather superimposes two points of view.

The point of view of the26philosophy of the flesh of the world and the point of view of the philosophy ofconscience alternate with one another failing to constitute an articulated thought.Thanks to his strong decision to assume the “common” as the theoretical referencepoint shared by the subject and the object, Merleau-Ponty does lay the basis forfurther theorizing of the visibility of the subject. But choosing for the role of thecommon “the flesh of the world” put the serious obstacles on Merleau-Ponty’s wayto theorizing this subject. The articulation between the subject and the visibleremains in his case fluctuating between two scarcely reconcilable traditions andperspectives of theorizing.

Not limiting ourselves to this critical analysis, in theconclusions to the chapter, we also outline a further potential of Merleau-Ponty'sradical theoretical project.In the intermediate conclusion to part I, we make an attempt to draw ananalogy between the theoretical problems faced by Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, andto associate the opportunity for their rethinking with the structuralism and poststructuralism movements taking effect after Merleau-Ponty’s death.

Namely, withits concept of subjectivization. The intrigue of the second part of the study isopened by the fact that even with this movement, the visibility of the subject(s)does not automatically become conceivable.Part II is devoted to the study of the topic of visibility of subjects in poststructuralism and in the philosophical moment succeeding it, which we call for thepurposes of discussion “post deconstructivism”. In the introduction to part II, weshow both new possibilities for theorizing subject’s visibility arising with thisphilosophical moment (introduction of the notion of “subjectivization” shifting theemphasis from “being-subject” to “becoming-subject” and leveling the oppositionbetween the subject and the object), and new theoretical challenges (prerogative ofthe language over the visible) which formulate an unprecedented format ofrelations between visibility and the subject: visibility does become a part of theprocesses of subjectivization, but is associated in so doing solely and exclusivelywith its axis of subjugation/submission/objectivization, whereas subjectivization inthe “strong” sense continues to be associated with invisibility.

A hypothesis is27proposed according to which the visible dimension of subjectivization becomes, onthe contrary, strategic in the waning years post structuralism.In the third chapter, building upon Jacques Rancière’s texts, we study thepossibilities of a more radical transformation of the link between visibility andsubjectivization within the realm of politics. Such concretizing is far fromcoincidence: in the French context of 1970ies-1980ies, it is the subject of politicalpractice that comes to the forefront, in many respects taking the shine out of thetheoretical subject. In this chapter, we make an attempt to show how JacquesRancière, a prominent representative of this turn to the theory of practices,succeeds to transform the visibility associated during that epoch mainly withsubmission (an approach coming to prevail in critical studies following the famousanalysis of a panopticon by Foucault in “Discipline and Punish”) into a means ofresistance on the territory of politics, that is to theorize the activity involved in aseemingly passive situation of visibility.

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