Thursday, September 30, 2010

Descartes and Methodological doubt

The common meaning of 'doubt' entails an unwillingness to act upon its object. Thus, the distinction of this meaning from Cartesian 'doubt' is clear--while Descartes may be able to doubt that a fire that seems to be engulfing the room in which is meditating actually exists, it seems unlikely that he would hesitate for a second to act upon his perception of it. The appropriateness of Sartre's characterization of Cartesian doubt as 'methodological' is evident when Descartes asserts not 'I doubt', but 'I can doubt'. His usage of the latter expression frequently seems to imply that 'I can doubt X' means 'I can construct an hypothesis that explains how I seem to perceive X, but something other than X, e. g. a dream, an hallucination, is the cause of the seeming perception'. However, in at least one other instance, 'I can doubt' instead means 'it is not contradictory for me to doubt X'. That instance arises when he asserts that he cannot doubt that he doubts X. However, that application of the Law of Contradiction seems, at minimum, to be misapplied. For, the question is whether or not he can doubt that he methodologically doubts X, so it is a question of whether or not he can doubt that he CAN doubt X, and not that he DOES doubt X. Now, on either definition of 'doubt', it seems unarguably contradictory to assert both 'I cannot doubt X' and 'I can doubt X'. But, in contrast, 'I can doubt that I doubt X' does not syntactically contradict 'I can doubt X', and indeed, the experience of dreaming that one is dreaming verifies it. So, Descartes' presentation suggests that he does not consider that his introduction of methodological doubt also calls into question traditional Logic.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

I Can Doubt, Therefore I Am

In the course of attempting to prove that he exists, Descartes constructs an hypothesis, i. e. he explains how X can appear to exist even if it does not; he applies the Principle of Contradiction, i. e. to doubting that he doubts; and, he draws an inference, i. e. from that he does doubt to that he can doubt. Hence, while any of these might be considered question-begging in an attempt to prove that he thinks, rather, they each seem to qualify as self-evidence that he can think. Now, both Sartre and Merleau-Ponty challenge his inference from the indubitability of doubting to the existence of a doubter, because, as they argue, Descartes only demonstrates that doubting, and, therefore, thinking, exists, not that either has a subject. In contrast, throughout the argument, the criterion for 'X exists' is that X, rather than dreaming, hallucinating, etc., is the cause of the appearance of X. And, that one 'can do X' means that one's performance of X is the cause of the appearance of the performance. Likewise, that one is the cause of the performance of X proves that one exists, on the criterion. In other words, merely in showing that he can doubt suffices for Descartes to prove that he exists, a consideration that informs Hegel's analysis of Recognition, via Kant's definition of 'actual'.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Gaining Insight Into

The relation 'gaining Insight into' seems paradoxical because 'S possessing O' seems to imply that that O is in S, while 'S . . . into O' seems to place S in O. But the apparent incoherence is not peculiar to Insight, e. g. one may both possess a house and live inside it. More fundamentally, one may be said to 'have' a body, as well as to 'inhabit' it, which Merleau-Ponty introduces in attempt to avoid the dualistic connotations of the former. But, despite his efforts, he only perpetuates the Cartesianism, primarily because 'inhabiting' is a product of the same abstraction that generates 'having'. As has been previously discussed, 'I can' is derived from 'I have possess a habit'. But, in turn, 'I possess the habit of X', is only a generalization of 'I have done X'. Hence, 'having a body' and 'inhabiting a body' are, alike, representations of one's actions. Furthermore, since 'I do X' entails self-externalization, the representation of it locates the 'I' within the performing subject. So, more generally, the taking possession of O, by S, via Insight, is constituted by an imaginative ingression of S into the activation of O. In other words, that the locution 'gaining Insight into' only reflects a standard analysis of the relation.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Insight, Inrterpretation, Learning How

Whitehead's theory of Concrescence amounts to agreement with Heidegger that lived experience is interpretive, for, it entails that any cognitive process consists in an adaptation of data to the subject. Hence, it likewise concurs that Insight is something that is 'gained'. On the other hand, to the extent that an Insight is gained, that it is gained 'into' its object is difficult to reconcile, since, in Interpretation, it is the object that enters into the subject. However, there is one kind cognitive process in which data is both internalized by the subject, and, yet, remains independent of the cognizing subject--learning how. For, the internalized data remains a formula that is meaningful only insofar as the subject externalizes itself by enacting it. In other words, to further confirm a previous thesis, the object of Insight is always an explanatory ground, e. g. a detective's who- and howdunnit, a scientific principle, etc. Since, Whitehead and Heidegger are both primarily interested in the teleology of experience, the executive interpretation of precepts seems to be outside the purview of their theories. Merleau-Ponty, as previously discussed, does appreciate that Consciousness is 'I can', but not to the extent that he relates it to 'I interpret'. In contrast, for Peirce, the object of an Insight is an hypothesis, and he is the pioneer of the theory that hypotheses are primarily operational, yet, he does not seem to further conclude that the object of an Insight is heuristic.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Insight and Concrescence

According to Whitehead, any cognitive process is a special case of 'Concrescence'. Unlike most traditional combinatory processes, Concrescence is not a localized event, but one in which the entire given universe is implicated, to greater and lesser degrees of relevance. Since a given subject is part of that universe, it, too, becomes an ingredient in a novel Concrescence. Hence, the 'subject' of a cognition is not constant throughout the development of the process, but is itself transformed, as well, into a new 'subject', that emerges at the completion of the Concrescence. Under routine conditions, the growth of the subject therein is minimal enough that it seems to maintain identity through the course of the process. On the other hand, Whitehead thereby also explains how moments of Insight can be so overwhelming absorbing for its subject--the subject itself is a constituent in the rapid synthetic processes that are transpiring, and, it is only in retrospect that the subject-object detachment, that yields the object of Insight, occurs.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Insight and Memory

Moments of sudden Insight may not be completely discontinuous with preceding experience--often enough something seems to trigger them. In this respect, Insight is similar to recollection, of two types. First, there is the sudden resolution of what had been an annoying memory block, and, second, there is the unexpected arrival of what seemed to be more deeply buried memories. Both these types tend to encourage Associationist theories of Mind, because such experiences are easily interpreted as a given element evoking, and, thus, prompting the retrieval of, another element, with which it has been linked. However, moments of Insight show the shortcoming of Associationism as a general theory of Mind. The latter better explains the retrieval of conjoined elements than the original conjoining, the most prominent Associationist thesis of which is Humean 'habit'. In contrast, moments of Insight entail creative syntheses, often, but not always, with the trigger as an ingredient. Furthermore, when the product of a synthesis is specific to the singular circumstances, it is difficult to characterize the process as 'habit-formation'. Likewise, therefore, Insight is distinct from recollection, which is generally more amenable to an Associationist explanation.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Insight and Imagination

One notable characteristic of most, if not all, moments of Insight is that the aura that seems to surround it tends to wear off, sooner or later. At that point, Peirce's theory of Insight seems accurate--that it is a moment of hypothesis-formation. For, once formed, an hypotheses then needs to be tested, so, once the formation is complete, whatever is compelling about the formative phase of the process gives way to uncertainty. So, it is not the self-evident truthfulness of the object of Insight that is the source of the power of the moment. Hence, it instead must be some subjective process that rivets the subject, and the source of that process is most likely Imagination. Kant's discovery of the Productive Imagination, and its contribution to Empirical Reality , offers an explanation of how a subjective process can become ingredient in objective experience, one that has been more recently confirmed by e. g. Gestalt Theory and Sartre's study of Imagination. So, what seems to overwhelm the subject during a moment of Insight is not that it is a discovery of a truth, but that the Imagination's processes preempt any other activity.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Timeline

While a line continues as a popular image of Time, it has been falling into general disrepute among Philosophers for more than a century. Most notably, Bergson criticizes it as an hypostasization of something that is intrinsically dynamic; Husserl shows how every moment is a convergence of lines; and Heidegger reveals the Present as a knotting of Past and Future that constitutes the basis of lived experience. While these, in varying ways, portray Time as a seamless flow, Sartre notes, as has been recently discussed here, disruptions in the flux. Still, he does not go so far as to describe what any careful consideration of lived experience exhibits--the prevalence of discontinuities, starting with that between the formation of an intention and the execution of it. Yet, as is found in memory, experience becomes homogenized by its location in a temporal sequence. So, a simplified image of the discontinuity of experience is a series of isolated points, which can become conjoined, with Time as the connector. Hence, the line can still be instructive as an illustration of Time in a modified respect--not itself as representing Time, but as a combination of points and connectives, with the latter symbolizing the specific Temporal component of experience.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Writing Between the Lines

According to Gestalt Theory, the Mind fills in the discontinuities of experience. For example, a sequence of dots on a page gets perceived as a line, and, since the dots are actually there, the contribution of the Mind is the connection between them. Likewise, 'reading between the lines', is, on Gestalt Theory, more accurately 'writing between the lines'. Hence, in a moment of Insight, the Mind itself provides what has been missing in a manifold of phenomena, producing a coherent sequence of events that is the object of cognition at the completion of the process. But, the provision of the missing piece and the cognition of the produced totality are different phases of the process. In other words, essential to Insight is what might be called 'Ingression', an active, though not necessarily explicit process, not to be confused with Whitehead's use of the term.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Peirce, Abduction, Insight

Peirce suggests that familiar examples of Insight are only dramatic instances of a more prevalent fundamental cognitive process. On his analysis, Insight is a phase of a type of inference that he usually calls Abduction, and sometimes, Retroduction. Whereas Induction infers a nominal generalization from some specific phenomena, Abduction infers a cause of which the phenomena are effects. In other words, Abduction is the process of hypothesis-formulation, with Insight as the initial moments of that formulation. In the familiar examples of Insight, those moments are amplified, in proportion to the mystification that preceded them, so that the earlier stages of the inferential process tend to recede into the background. In less dramatic circumstances, argues Peirce, Abduction, and, hence, Insight, are ingredients in every perceptual judgment. For, every perceptual judgment is the product of an objectification of subjective experience, with the logical subject of the judgment being Abduced as the cause of the original experience, e. g. 'The ball is red' results from Abducing the ball as the cause of the experienced redness. Since for Peirce, the validity of an hypothesis consists entirely in its explanatory power, an unwitnessed crime, the cause of a sensation of red, and Gravity, which are sharply distinguished in some theories, can all be the objects of Insight.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Insight

Despite playing a important role in the history of Philosophy, a mode of cognition that has received little systematic treatment is Insight. Insight is also familiar to non-Philosophers as well, if not from first-hand experience, at least from the witnessing of a detective's sudden realization of the solution to a mystery. Insight seems to elude some of the traditional Epistemological categories. Since the crime was not present to empirical perception, the identity of the killer is not an object of Intuition, nor is its center present in the Intuition of a circle. Peirce briefly suggests that Insight is inferential, but the detective does not arrive at the solution via a process of elimination, and, as Spinoza shows, the adequate definition of a circle does more than posit the existence of its center. Rather, the object of Insight is given as a generative ground, e. g. of the phenomenal clues of the mystery, of the points of a circle. Insight does seem to be a Phenomenological Augenblick, but, again, it is not an Intuition, nor is at an instanteous totalization of particulars, since its object is both not present and a particular. Instead, it does seem to be a mode of Imagination, but not of its traditional species. Since it does not copy a previous perception, it is not reproductive Imagination, and both Productive and Creative Imagination generate novelities. So, 're-creative' or 'reconstructive' Imagination are closer classifications, though neither quite accounts for what the prefix 'in-' of Insight signifies--its penetrating quality.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Phenomenology, Description, Interpretation

In Being and Time, the primary mode of subjective experience is called 'Understanding', not 'Consciousness', its analogue in most other Phenomenological studies.. Furthermore, Understanding is interpretative for Heidegger, though he reserves 'Interpretation' for more specialized purposes. That is, the basic encounter with an object is constituted by an appropriation of the object, by the subject, in terms of some more general context, instrumental, according to Heidegger, though any figure-ground structuring might also qualify as interpretive. Now, the Phenomenological method is usually characterized as 'description', but the more precise Husserlian classification is 'eidetic intuition', i. e. empirical objects may be the source material for its descriptions, but the proper objects of its gaze are the essences that are revealed therein. However, Heidegger plainly categorizes eidetic intuition as Understanding. Hence, according to Heidegger himself, Phenomenological 'description' is actually interpretive. Indeed, Being and Time interprets lived experience in terms of Temporal structures; Being and Nothingness, in terms of In-itself and For-itself; and Phenomenology of Perception, in terms of the relation between Perception and Motility. So, while each might purport to let the things themselves be, each is an act of appropriation by its author.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Moment, Instant, Realization

For both Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, Time stops with the 'Augenblick'--the 'moment of vision'. By also characterizing it as an 'ultimate consciousness' and a 'gaze', Merleau-Ponty seems to be suggesting that the Augenblick is the most fundamental layer of lived experience, as well as the Phenomenological gaze itself, while it seems to be for Heidegger what he later describes as the 'appropriation of a being by Being'. However, Sartre seems less mystified by it, offering an account of the experience that is more incisive than those of the other two. First, he terms a disruption in the temporal flow of experience an 'instant', which he defines as the completion of one project and the beginning of another one. Second, he briefly characterizes revelation as 'realization', which implies both completion, and, thus, temporality, since, it implies its unity with what has preceded it. So, the Augenblick can be interpreted as a realization of the instant of the completion of a process, i. e. a 'dawning', that leads up to it, and, hence, as temporal. Furthermore, Time 'stops' at the Augenblick simply because a new experience has yet to begin. However, Sartre does not draw the further conclusion from his analysis that an ending does not necessarily entail a new beginning, and, so, joins the other two in missing that the resumption of experience remains a-temporal, i. e. begins as Spatialization, as has been previously discussed here.

Friday, September 17, 2010

Phenomenology, Description, Narration

Husserlian Phenomenology is generally accepted to be a descriptive method, which distinguishes it from doctrines that are prescriptive, even if it implicitly entails evaluations, such as 'accuracy is better than inaccuracy'. But, also in contrast to description is another mode of linguistic presentation, one that is also factual, not normative--narration. Narration might seem completely inappropriate for Philosophical discourse, but that would be an arbitrary judgment. For, Hegel's Phenomenology is fundamentally a narrative--it itself is the locus of the sequences that it presents. In contrast, despite the centrality of Temporality to lived experience, according to Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty, each of their accounts of it are synchronic, entailing processes of only elaboration, elucidation, or clarification, but not, as is the case with Hegel, development. For each, the subject of the account is the Phenomenological gaze, a "moment of vision" in which "nothing occurs", as Heidegger describes it, and an "ultimate consciousness" that is "timeless", as Merleau-Ponty puts it. Heidegger attempts to redeem the moment by further characterizing it as a "waiting-towards". But, while he, or either of the others, is waiting for Time to begin again, a quick gaze at the writing on the page in front of him will reveal the ultimate nature of Time--Time stops, and the nothingness beyond it is Space. Or, as narration demonstrates more immediately than any Phenomenological description--Time is in the telling.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Intention, Space, Time

Some distinctions between intentional object and intentional objective have already been discussed--cognitive vs. practical; and, at least for Merleau-Ponty, centripetal vs. centrifugal, with respect to the subject. But a further distinction is more fundamental to the Phenomenological account of lived experience. The Consciousness of a chair intends an object that is at a distance from the subject, while the Consciousness of the possibility of sitting down intends an object that may soon be performed. In other words, in the former case, intention is spatial, while in the latter, it is temporal. For all three, temporality is more fundamental to experience than is spatiality, which would seem to entail that practice precedes cognition. On the other hand, centripetality predominates in all three theories--experience is future-oriented, i. e. is teleological. For each, the present is pregnant with the future, except the present of the Phenomenological gaze, which seems, for each, to be an end-in-itself.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Being-in-one's-World

The definitive Phenomenological concept of lived experience is 'Being-in-the-World', pioneered by Heidegger, and adopted, with modifications, by both Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. The main ambition of the concept is to challenge the traditions that conceive Subject and World either as essentially isolated, or as either one derived from the other, by presenting them as fundamentally connected. For all three, the subject of experience is 'in' the world as the focus of a concatenation of elements that constitute the world. However, for all three, this world is also revealed, which makes locating a subject 'in' what is revealed to it difficult. Consequently, each, in his own way, treats the revelation as an anonymous, or even a subjectless, event, within which some amorphous given, e. g. Being-in-itself, is polarized into subject and world. But such an adjustment does not touch upon a further problem with the original formulation. If worldhood is comprised of a concatenation of items with a subject as its focal point, and, if, as all three agree, a plurality of subjects exist, it follows that a plurality of worlds exist. Of the three, Sartre seems to be the only one troubled by the conclusion, but he has to abandon Phenomenology, in favor of Dialectical Reason, in order to demonstrate the possiblity of the unification of worlds. The need for such a re-orientation underscores that the concept 'Being-in-the-World is beyond the scope of Phenomenology, and that the more accurate formulation of its concept of lived experience is 'Being-in-one's-World.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Consciousness, 'I Can', 'I Have'

Ordinary language expresses the proprietary character of 'I can' in three ways. First, 'I can' means that I 'have' an ability. Second, it implies that I 'have' previously exercised that ability. And, third, to have an ability is to possess a 'habit', which, as Merleau-Ponty notes, is etymologically related to 'have'. Hence, 'I can' is fundamentally 'I have', so, if as Merleau-Ponty asserts, Consciousness is 'I can', then, accordingly, it is fundamentally 'I have'. Likewise, as Bergson, pre-eminently establishes, Consciousness is not just passing observation, but a process of retention. Furthermore, that Consciousness is 'I have' is expressed by Kant, Hegel, Merleau-Ponty, and Deleuze, though less explicitly so by Sartre, when they ground Self-Consciousness in Self-Recognition, e. g. in the derivation of Self-Consciousness from the Consciousness of an object on the basis of the object's being 'mine'.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Intention, Object, Objective

In its common use, 'intention' means 'conscious objective'. In contrast, for Brentano and his followers, it means 'Consciousness of an object'. Hence, there are two main differences between the two types of intention. First, one is practical, and the other is cognitive. Second, one aims at an action, while the other aims at a thing. Despite the sharp distinction, Sartre, at times, indiscriminately vacillates between the two, e. g. a Consciousness of the possibility of sitting down is also a Consciousness of a nearby chair. Elsewhere, though, the priority for him of the cognitive version is in evidence, e. g. in his analysis of Imagination. Merleau-Ponty likewise vacillates, between the intention that guides bodily motion, and the intention that discloses a thing. That Consciousness is Consciousness of an objective follows from his assertion that Consciousness is 'I can'. But, that Consciousness is Consciousness of an object defines the functioning of the Phenomenological gaze, which is the primary principle of his study of lived experience.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Synaesthesia and Syn-kinaesthesia

Merleau-Ponty discovers that even specialized lived experience is fundamentally synaesthetic, which imparts a unity to it that precedes the reflective unification that the 'I think' reconstructs. That synaesthesia is experienced as a saturated Consciousness does not imply that it is incorporeal--Merleau-Ponty cites studies that show the body's complicity in the experience. However, his account fails to derive synaesthesia from the 'I can', which, as has been discussed, he, in places, establishes as the basic nature of Consciousness. Hence, the account abstracts from the contribution of motility to the experience. In contrast, a derivation from 'I can' would, at minimum, demonstrate that synaesthesia is primarily constituted by inchoate bodily motions, with the contribution of external objects to be further determined. As is, a term coined here, syn-kinaesthesia', seems to more accurately express the motile nature of the experience than does 'synaesthesia'.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Habit and Phenomenology

Merleau-Ponty's assertion that Consciousness is 'I can' implies that Consciousness is the possession of an ability, i. e. habit. He proceeds to characterize habit as "our power of dilating our being-in-the world", an extension of what is originally the body's "motor space", via the adaptation, to our modes of motility, of instruments. A key factor in this expansion is intention, which, by guiding motility, accomplishes the incorporation into it of instruments. Hence, given that Consciousness is 'I can', the primary Intentional object is always the body, in general, and some motility, in particular, while external items become Intentional objects only insofar as they are appropriated as instruments. However, he stops short of likewise redefining the Phenomenological method as, say, 'the corporeal activity of articulating, to others, the observed general features of lived experience'. Instead, he leaves unmodified the traditional concept of it, i. e. the recording of what appears to a detached gaze. Possibly because of his commitment to traditional Phenomenology, Merleau-Ponty, despite his derivation, from 'I can', of the primacy of motor space, and of the essential centrifugality of lived experience with respect to the subject, ultimately subordinates those results to their antitheses--that motor space is abstract, virtual, and non-existent; that experience is centripetal with respect to the subject; that Perception is fundamentally cognitive, and that the world is orientated toward external perceptual objects, with the perceiver on the periphery, i. e. at the location of the Phenomenological gaze.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Merleau-Ponty, Space, Teleology

Like Heidegger and Sartre, Merleau-Ponty seeks to reveal the spatiality of living experience that precedes the scientific concept of space. As it is for them, space for him is, in contrast with the Newtonian concept, oriented, not absolute, and, in particular, centripetal with respect to the subject of experience. Unlike them, for whom the orientation is constituted by the instrumentality of objects, for Merleau-Ponty, the Gestalt structure of space suffices to orient it, i. e. towards a perceived object that occupies its center, between two horizons--not merely the standard far one, but, a near one, as well, namely, the body of the perceiver. Despite that variation, Merleau-Ponty's concept of space, and therefore, his concept of behavior, is as teleological as are those of his predecessors. For, each implies that motility is always oriented towards some experiential object, which means that only some external element can be the occasion any behavior. They also conversely imply that if one suddenly found oneself in the some amorphous wilderness, one would be unable to move, because without any ready-to-hand item in one's purview, the space in which one could move does not exist, according to the teleological concept. Now, as has been noted, Merleau-Ponty does also recognize a spatiality that he acknowledges as centrifugal with respect to the subject, namely purposeless motion, but he dismisses it as virtual and, even, non-existent. He might have, instead, realized that such a concept of space alone explains how motility in wilderness conditions is possible. If so, then, he might have arrived at the conclusion that such space is even more primitive than teleological lived space.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Merleau-Ponty, Space, Motility

According to Merleau-Ponty, the transition from Sensation to Perception originates both the temporalization and the spatialization of lived experience. In the subjective dimension of experience, Sensation is the Past, the transition is the Present, and the completed Perception is the Future. On the objective side, what begins as an indeterminate sensory manifold gets resolved into a focal object, centered with respect to two horizons--not merely the background of standard Gestalt structuring, but a foreground limit, i. e. the body, as well. Hence, since the transition is effected by the subject of experience, spatialization is ultimately a function of temporalization, according to Merleau-Ponty, which aligns him with not only Heidegger and Sartre, but Kant, as well, in this systematization of time and space. However, his derivation of space compromises his commitment to the essential corporeal motility of the experiential subject. For, as has been previously argued here, motility, or, more precisely, locomotility, is intrinsically Spatial, i. e. it entails both a Here and an indeterminate Elsewhere, preceding any individuation of a specific There. Therefore, the body is essentially the center of its locomotile Space. So, Merleau-Ponty's concept of Perception either ignores the intrinsic Spatiality of corporeality, or, at, minimum, misattributes it to Perception, in either case compromising his own thesis of the irreducible corporeality of lived experience. If he were to derive Space directly from motility, as does Formaterialism, he might likewise arrive at the alternative conclusion that the contribution of Perception to Spatiality is its specification of a location, i. e. its determination of a specific There, within Space, which is precisely, but no more, what he describes the focusing by Perception of accomplishing, anyhow. On the other hand, such a modification of his analysis might significantly compromise the status of his thesis of the experiential primacy of Perception.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Merleau-Ponty and Berkeley

Merleau-Ponty's description of lived experience is an explicit challenge to Kant, insofar as it reveals an a posteriori structuring of that experience, e. g. synaesthesia is a pre-intellectual unification of a sensory manifold. But, his presentation has a more immediate, albeit implicit, target. First, he establishes that Sensation is corporeal, citing studies that demonstrate that an ingredient in basic sensory experience is the body's attunement to specific sense content. Second, he shows how the transition from Sensation to Perception is accomplished by locating the sensible object at a distance from the subject. He likens this process to binocular focusing, which discovers depth perception terminating in a unitary object. Though Merleau-Ponty does not mention him in this context, this account of the actuality of visual depth is a clear reference to Berkeley, for whom the thesis of the derivative and abstract nature of depth perception is essential to his doctrine that experience is fundamentally incorporeal. So, the ultimate historical significance of Merleau-Ponty's Corporealism is not so much with respect to Kant or Sartre, but as an innovation within the Phenomenalist-Phenomenological tradition as a whole.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Merleau-Ponty and Sensation

On Merleau-Ponty's description, Sensation is experienced as an unmediated anonymous absorption in an external object. Now, it is not explicitly clear how he might accommodate a traditional counter-example--cases of color color-blindness demonstrate that Sensation must be only in a subject, since one and the same external object cannot be both, e. g. red and green. Most likely, though, he would argue that such a positing of an identical object on scientific grounds only supervenes on, but does not pre-empt, lived experience, i. e. that experientially, there are, in fact two objects, e. g. one red, one greeen, for two different subjects. However, such a response does not seem to accommodate as easily a variation on the traditional counter-example that has been previously proposed here. In the familiar case of the same water being experienced as hot by a hand that had previously been exposed to cold conditions, but as lukewarm by one that had been gloved, the plain explanation for the variation is that a determining factor in each sensation is the differing prior conditions of the hands. In other words, Sensation is the experience in the subject, of a transition from a previous condition, effected by an outer object. Thus, Sensation is not unmediated contact with an outer object, but mediated, by an external object, intra-subjective experience. This conclusion is not a scientific supervention on lived experience, but a pre-emption of Merleau-Ponty's account of it, on the basis of taking into account other phenomena.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Consciousness, Habit, Space

At one point, Merleau-Ponty asserts that Consciousness is an 'I can' rather than an 'I think', a formulation which he attributes to Husserl. How the assertion is consistent with either any aspect of Husserl's theory, or his own thesis of the experiential primacy of Perception, is unclear. Regardless, the specific reference of the formulation is to Habit, which, according to Merleau-Ponty, is the intrinsic corporeal possession of knowing how to proceed, rather than the product of a visitation to a mechanical body by an incorporeal Consciousness supervening on it some theoretical knowledge. However, such an analysis seems unaware of Dewey's argument that even the most basic habit is the product of a shaping of an impulsion, which is more patent in the case of the cultivation of a new habit. So, for example, one's ability to walk towards someone else is preceded by the process of one's learning how to walk. Likewise, the concept of intra-subjective space precedes the concept of inter-subjective or objective space, confirming a point recently argued here.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology, and Space

Citing clinical studies that demonstrate a sharp distinction between one's physical gesture to another and the same motion performed idly or for mere exercise, Merleau-Ponty proposes the heterogeneity of two corresponging concepts of space, inter-subjective and intra-subjective, respectively. On his theory, the former is fundamental and the latter derivative, and he characterizes the inter-subjective as 'actual' and concrete', but the intra-subjective as 'virtual', 'abstract', 'reflective', and, even, 'non-existent', presumably another critical nod towards Sartre. But, such speculative interpretation of the relation between the two arbitrarily diverges from Phenomenological description, so other systematizations are possible. Instead, for example, intra-subjective space can be conceived as primary, either as implicit in any given inter-subjective situation, or, at least, as the explicit basis of a possible novel reconstruction of space. However, such an alternative ordering of the two spaces reveals a concept of Space that is prior to and independent of either of them. For, it construes inter-subjective space as outside of intra-subjective space, and, according to e. g. Formaterialism, as has been previously discussed, 'outside of' is the essence of Space, not as a given static relation, but as a concomitant of an Excession, e. g. of any extending of a given space, such as the extending of intra-subjective space to inter-subjective space. Furthermore, since the latter extension is the origin of one's comportment towards others, by suppressing it, Merleau-Ponty thereby contributes to the pervasive marginalization of Ethics by Phenomenologists.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Merleau-Ponty and Speech Acts

For Merleau-Ponty, a speech act combines motility and intellect, e. g. the physical emission of sound, and the imbuing of that with meaning. So, when he further characterizes the act as a "surplus" and a "non-being", he is likely directing his concept of an embodied upsurge as a challenge to Sartre. However, his notion of 'non-being' vacillates in the relevant passages from Phenomenology of Perception. On the one hand, it seems to be a reference to the incompleteness of the course of a process with respect to its eventual attainment of Being. But, on the other, it also seems to be a reference to the incorporeality of a meaning prior to its incarnation in an empirical linguistic expression. Furthermore, he also alludes to an 'intention' to signify that is present at the outset of the speech act. More generally, while the thesis of the essential corporeality of Consciousness is one of the primary anti-Sartrean results of his Phenomenological study, there is no indication that Merleau-Ponty applies that thesis to Phenomenology itself. Hence, his reliance upon Intentionality to challenge Sartre suggests a relapse into the latter's Ontological dualism.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Beyond the Gaze

The point of departure for Phenomenological processes is sometimes termed the 'Gaze', a descendant of Cartesian 'Thinking'. While the latter serves as a foundation for, primarily, Metaphysics and Epistemology, as well as their derivatives, Phenomenologists have expanded the scope of the Gaze to Ontology and Psychology, most notably. Despite its privileging by Husserl, the primacy of the Gaze is open to challenge from a variety of directions, e. g. that it is no more than a means to some other ends, that the visual metaphor is arbitrary, or that, as Husserl's occasional 'I turn my gaze to . . .' phrase implies, there is an 'I' that is even more fundamental than the Gaze. Regardless, the easy response for the Phenomenologist is that the source of these challenges is still the Gaze itself, seeking to expand its purview. But, such a response exposes a chronic blind spot in Phenomenology, and in the Contemplative tradition, in general. The Archimedean point of any such response, any argument defending the doctrine, any Phenomenological description is not the Gaze, but the attempt to articulate them, i. e. writing or speaking. In other words, it is not the Gaze that is the methodological foundation of Phenomenology, and of Philosophy, in general, but a corporeal, social action.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Intentionality and Object

The central thesis of Intentionality is that Consciousness is intrinsically related to an object that is external to it. But, then, what is probably the most common characterization of that relation, namely, that Consciousness 'aims' at its object, if not outright undercuts the thesis, at least misleadingly represents it. For, that Consciousness aims at an object implies that it pre-exists the object, as, at most, a potential to aim, without a determinate target. Instead, the only way that having an object can be intrinsic to Consciousness is if it first arises in an encounter between a subject and an object, or if it is that encounter itself. Hence, Consciousness is primarily the revelation of resistance, e. g. even the perception of a color is primarily the experience of an impediment to more extensive vision. In other words, if Consciousness is intrinsically the Consciousness of an external object, and the Consciousness of an external object arises as an encounter with the latter, then Consciousness presupposes the locomotility of the subject of Consciousness, i. e. the motion to which an object presents resistance. Ironically, Sartre reproaches other Phenomenologists for ignoring the 'coefficient of adversity' that objects possess, i. e. their capacity to resist projects, without himself recognizing the fundamental role that their resistance plays in the very constitution of the Consciousness of them.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Attentionality, Intentionality, Corporeality

Attention entails a Gestalt structuring, because it distinguishes, within a phenomenal manifold, one zone of data from the rest. In contrast, to produce a figure-ground differentiation from Intentional premises, Sartre needs recourse to two negations--a 'radical' one that reveals the In-itself in general, and a 'present' one, which selects a 'this' from the general revelation. So, while both an Attentional and an Intentional scheme can explain Gestalt structures, the former would seem to do so more elegantly. Nevertheless, Sartre is committed to the latter, surely at least in part because his project of reducing all modes of Consciousness to negation demands it. But, subscription to Attentionality would, furthermore, disrupt the project in another respect--Attention incorporates an irreducible corporeal dimension. As is most clearly evident in visual experience, Attention seems impossible without keeping one's eyes open and directed towards its object, not moving one's head, etc. So, in an Attentional model of Consciousness, a For-itself is no more than a configuration of an In-itself, e. g. a 'fold', and not the radically negating upsurge from the latter that is central to Sartre's project. More generally, Attention is problematic for any theory of Consciousness that has previous commitments, wittingly or otherwise, to Cartesian dualism.