Interestingly enough, Merleu-Ponty uses the term “body” only a few times in his final chapter on “Freedom.” He uses the word “consciousness” numerous times instead. Yet if we consider The Phenomenology of Perception as a whole, freedom is how our bodies are in the world. It’s what makes our being-in-the-world worth it, what defines us as humans with commitments.To begin with, strict causation can’t allow for freedom because it leads down the garden path to determinism. (This object or force acts upon that force or object in a complex sequence leading to some necessary end somehow independent of my consciousness Read more