Institution and passivity : course notes from the Collège de France (1954-1955) /
Maurice Merleau-Ponty ; foreword by Claude Lefort ; text established by Dominique Darmaillacq, Claude Lefort, and Stéphanie Ménasé ; translated from the French by Leonard Lawlor and Heath Massey.
- Evanston, Illinois : Northwestern University Press, 2010.
- xxxvi, 276 pages ; 23 cm.
- Northwestern University studies in phenomenology and existential philosophy .
- Northwestern University studies in phenomenology & existential philosophy .
"Originally published in French as L'Institution-La Passivité: Notes de cours au Collège de France (1954-1955) (Paris: Editions Belin, 2003)."
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Institution in personal and public history. Introduction -- Institution and life -- Institution of a feeling -- The institution of a work of art -- Institution of a domain of knowledge -- The field of culture -- Historical institution: particularity and universality -- Summary for Thursday's course: institution in personal and public history -- The problem of passivity: sleep, the unconscious, memory. Philosophy and the phenomenon of passivity -- For an ontology of the perceived world -- Sleep -- Perceptual consciousness and imagining consciousness -- Symbolism -- Dreams -- The Freudian unconscious -- Delusions: gradiva -- The case of Dora -- The problem of memory -- Appendix: three notes on the Freudian unconscious -- Summary for Monday's course: the problem of passivity: sleep, the unconscious, memory.
Institution and Passivity is a collection of course notes taken from classes Maurice Merleau‑Ponty taught at the Collège de France in 1954‑1955. This work is philosophically significant as a transitional text in Merleau‑Ponty’s thought, filling in ideas between his earlier works and later works such as The Visible and the Invisible and Signs.