Rediscovering engagement after Descartes — phenomenology, Macmurray, and the primal world-view

Abstract

Philosophy in the tradition of Kant and Descartes is characterised by disengagement and objectification. But the rationalist world-view of Descartes and Newton has been challenged from within by the focus on engagement and personification in the work of philosophers such as Macmurray and those in the phenomenological tradition such as Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. This challenge may be indicative of a paradigm shift within modernity. In a manner reminiscent of an African world-view, Macmurray attempts to reinstate relationism, while the phenomenologists propose a similar emphasis on immediate, sensuous appreciation of, and engagement with, the environment. The African world-view is distinctly similar to those proposed by Macmurray and the phenomenologists.