Stephen's thematizing logic as opposed to Bloom's carnal logic in James Joyce's Ulysses

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to remap subjectivity in Joyces Ulysses in phenomenological terms by shedding the light on both the primordial and the reflective relationships of an embodied subject with the world. As epitomized by Stephens lived experience of the world which unfolds according to a thematizing logic, subjectivity is defined by an interactive process of exchange between the body-subject and the world through both a knowing body and a thematizing embodied consciousness. Blooms experience of the world, which unfolds in terms of a carnal logic, exemplifies subjectivity at its primordial level of engagement of the body-subject with the world through a knowing body. This study is based on Merleau-Pontys phenomenology since it is preoccupied with subjectivity as body. The philosophical thoughts of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, as characterized by a critical stance toward Cartesian philosophy, converge with the phenomenology of the body in Ulysses, a phenomenology which not only establishes the body as the locus of a pre-reflective interaction with the world, but also as the locus of the knowledge of the world and self-knowledge. In Ulysses, the subject is defined in terms of an engagement with the world involving a dialogue with the world, one which rejects Cartesianism and which is based on the body as the locus of our pre-reflective and our active engagement with the world, and most importantly, the body becomes the ground for the thematization of the body-subjects experience of the world. Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom are depicted as epitomes of the phenomenological subjects who have different ways of perceiving the world: Bloom reacts reflexively to the rhythm of the phenomenal field by communicating with the world through his senses and his body, whereas Stephen participates in the rhythm of being by echoing this rhythm through the body and by recreating reality through phenomenological reflection on his embodied experience. Stephens and Blooms divergent ways of experiencing the world unify the Cartesian dichotomies and establish the experience of the world as inseparable from the body. Subjectivity becomes both a pre-reflective engagement with the world and a phenomenological reflective engagement with the world.