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Title: L'espace politique en tant que scène de l'apparaître
Subtitle: La «Note sur Machiavel» de Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Author(s): DI FAZIO, Caterina
Journal: Etudes phénoménologiques - Phenomenological Studies
Volume: 3    Date: 2019   
Pages: 107-126
DOI: 10.2143/EPH.3.0.3285176

Abstract :
As Merleau-Ponty writes in the 'Note sur Machiavel' (1949), Machiavelli’s merit consists in thematizing for the first time not only the intersubjective structure of action but also the phenomenal nature of politics. For Machiavelli, the first philosopher who treated this problem, political space is already a space of appearance, structured as much by the imaginary as by conflict. This is why a phenomenological conception of space as 'phenomenal field' turns out to be the mirror effect of a political conception of space as the stage of the appearance. The phenomenality of political space rests entirely on its public dimension. Political space is the space where the act of constituting space – and thus the phenomenal field – is intrinsically connected to the act of instituting the political community. If politics is essentially constituted by acts and actions, and if action is most of all the mode in which I appear to the other, politics and appearance turn out to be intrinsically related.

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