Abstract
The article draws attention to one dimension of sensation which remained unnoticed in the Merleau-Ponty research: its romantic, herderian dimension. Herder''s textes enable us to better understand some of Merleau-Ponty''s analysis (e.g. the idea of perception as communication or co-existence with the thing sensed).
The author tries neither to reduce Merleau-Ponty to a sentimental romanticism, nor to show Herder''s philosophy as a phenomenology avant la lettre, but to confront two doctrines of sensation (Empfinden).