Signes
Paris, Gallimard, (November 19) 1960.
1 vol. (135 x 200 mm) of 438 p. and [1] f. In wrappers.
First edition.
One of the press copies, stamped as such.
Signed presentation inscription: “À Max-Pol Fouchet avec ma pensée très amicale, Maurice Merleau-Ponty.”
One of the press copies, stamped as such.
Signed presentation inscription: “À Max-Pol Fouchet avec ma pensée très amicale, Maurice Merleau-Ponty.”
Founder of the review Les Temps Modernes with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in 1945, Maurice Merleau-Ponty was appointed professor at the Sorbonne in 1949 and elected to the Collège de France in 1952. Signes, his major work, appeared in 1960: language is described there as a “vibration” of thought — man thinks with words but never escapes language. Like Primo Levi, Merleau-Ponty admits his inability to translate the horror of the concentration camps, asserting that “a new language would have to be invented to describe Auschwitz,” underscoring that humanity had encountered an unimaginable reality, one that everyday language was too weak to convey.
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