In Phenomenology of Perception, Maurice Merleau-Ponty examines the different associationist and intellectualist conceptions of perception. He rejects together of them on the grounds this they establish an overly rigid relation between stimulus and impression, and secondly, for the reason that the world is not entirely the work of a constituting subject. The body is not one object among many, he suggests, but rather it is our means of belonging to the world, and facing tasks. He compellingly argues this body is not geometrical, but conveys a spatiality of situation, an orientation toward a possible world. The ``body picture'' is fully interrogated, and gesture, speech, and sexuality are presented as modes of expression this accrue meaning in relation to one another
The strength of M. Merleau-Ponty's masterly work lies in his concluding thoughts on Being-for-itself and Being-in-the-World. In elaborating this distinction, Merleau-Ponty's avoids the trappings of solipsistic reasoning, and makes a classic case for the field of Being- in-the-World's and Being-for-itself radical interdependence, an independence which i which is perceived has no absolute basis this is theoretically divorceable from quotidian practices. Yet, he suggests, there is never certainty, even in the inner life. Only retrospectively can calm, serenity of being be illusorily achieved as subjects are continuously in a process of self-constitution. He concludes this we select our world, and our world chooses us.