In this paper, I explore the reception of Hegel's dialectic in Merleau-Ponty and situate his thought within the history of philosophy in France after World War II. I show biographically and bibliographically that he, along with Hyppolite, interpreted Hegel, and both of them shaped another current of Hegelian reception in France, distinct from Koj`eve's. This paper has identified two characteristics of their interpretation. First, Merleau-Ponty and Hyppolite's interpretation of Hegel is as follows. The concept of the Absolute, which dialectical movement towards, makes possible a negation of negation; therefore, the dialectical movement is "the dialectic without synthesis," which continues infinitely. Second, in finding the dialectical movement of an experience, both proceeded to analyze each nature of the object of experience or each domain of expression and concentrated on clarifying the rules of the use of symbols within that domain of expression. Their understanding of the concept of Hegel's dialectic I elucidate seems to be actual in educational thought in France after World War II. Namely, the theory they derive can be a flexible way of thinking about human beings. This is because it will depict human beings who rationally cope with current contingent situations and develop various patterns of recognition toward the world rather than being recovered in a "grand narrative" that aims at a single ideal image or holistic development.
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