The vital reduction and the interdisciplinary vocation of phenomenology. A dialogue between Francisco Leocata and Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Abstract

Francisco Leocata finds a new phenomenological reduction, which he calls vital reduction. This reduction aims at naming the centrality of the subject’s incarnation, that is, the fundamental situation of being pierced by history and by our fellow subjects as the very point of departure of our knowledge. This vital reduction enables a promisory dialogue between the different sciences, phenomenology, and metaphysics, in order to reflect upon human condition. Although Leocata prefered the trascendental phenomenology of Edmund Husserl in order to build his philosophy of person, in this paper we will argue that a dialogue with Merleau-Ponty is more promising, for he was the one who stressed the interdisciplinary nature of phenomenology.