# Essence and Language_ Three Claims Conc - Len Lawlor **Abstract:** This essay attempts to look at the recent publications of Merleau-Ponty’s course notes in order to determine whether Merleau-Ponty’s thought remains continuous with his early work such as the Phenomenology of Perception. The essay’s thesis is that there is a kind of rupture in Merleau-Ponty’s thinking. This rupture occurs because of an increasing influence by Heidegger. More specifically, it is Heidegger’s later reflections on language that most deeply affect Merleau-Ponty’s thinking. What I am going to present here is recent issues in research on Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy. Over the last eight years, there have been a lot of developments. In 1995, one of Merleau-Ponty’s lecture courses from the Collège de France in 1956-57, La Nature, was published.1 Then in 1996, his Notes de cours from 1959 to 1961 was published. 2 And finally, in 1998, the notes to Merleau-Ponty’s final course at the Collège de France, which was on the later **Authors:** [[Essay 8]]