The Body as a Form of the Unconscious: Valéry and Merleau-Ponty, Critics of Freud

The notion of the unconscious resulted in a reversal of optics concerning the evidence of consciousness, and the split which Freud created in the analysis of mental activities elicited many reactions. Some French writers attempted to develop concepts with the ambition of competing with the unconscious. We are interested here in the notion of implex that Valéry elaborated in L’Idée fixe (1932) in order to attack the idea of the unconscious, and which Merleau-Ponty developed, notably in his courses at the Collège de France in 1953. With this notion, Valéry and Merleau-Ponty criticize the Freudian conception of the unconscious, which encourages us to consider the consciousness as a complete liar. But, in spite of their concern to preserve the certainty acquired by consciousness, both are driven to deepen the thoughtless foundation of thought, presumably to respond to the impact of the Freudian unconscious. This attempt is clearly manifested in Valéry’s reflections on the body, and in Merleau-Ponty’s on the notion of implex. The body at once external and internal to the ego, imaginary and real, and the very condition of rational thought according to Valéry, can play the role of the unconscious in mental activities. We would like to follow the sinuous path that reveals the body as the form of the unconscious, by first examining the notion of implex and then Valéry’s reflections on the body, before tackling Merleau-Ponty’s attempts to employ in his own way Freud’s observations on the traces of the trauma.