The Logos of the Sensible World

Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenological Philosophy

John Sallis, Richard Rojcewicz, Richard Rojcewicz

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780253040466
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Phenomenology in Philosophy

A presentation of the two-semester lecture course on Merleau-Ponty given at Duquesne University from 1970 to 1971 by the esteemed American philosopher. Devoted primarily to a close reading of the French philosopher's magnum opus, Phenomenology of Perception, this course begins with a detailed analysis of The Structure of Behavior. The central topics considered in the lectures include the functions of the phenomenological body; beyond realism and idealism; the structures of the lived world; spatiality, temporality, language, sexuality; and perception and knowledge. Sallis illuminates Merleau-Ponty's first two works and offers a thread to follow through developments in his later essays. Merleau-Ponty's notion of the primacy of perception and his claim that "the end of a philosophy is the account of its beginning" are woven throughout the lectures. For Sallis's part, these lectures are foundational for his extended engagement with Merleau-Ponty's The Visible and the Invisible, which was published in Sallis's Phenomenology and the Return to Beginnings. "Sallis has managed to write a review that is accessible and makes only modest demands on the reader. This is an ideal resource for nonspecialists and for those who want a straightforward, relatively brief treatment of Merleau-Ponty's important book... Highly recommended." — Choice

II. PHENOMENOLOGY OF PERCEPTION

A. The Preface of the Phenomenology of Perception

HUSSERL FAMOUSLY SUMMARIZED the basic intent of phenomenology in this expression: zu den Sachen selbst. We have seen something of what this return “to the things themselves” means for Merleau-Ponty: things are to be described rather than explained or analyzed.

That is to say, each thing is to be regarded as it presents itself, as it shows itself to consciousness, as it is for consciousness. This is a matter of returning to things the way they present themselves prior to being covered over by the concepts of philosophy, of science, and of common sense (recall the example of the cube).

Phenomenology is thus inherently transcendental: everything is regarded as it presents itself, as it is for consciousness. Here we need to obviate three common misconceptions:

(1) Husserl’s dictum has sometimes been taken as a return to realism, to a conception of real things existing “out there,” independently of consciousness.

But clearly this is not what is meant. In fact, the uncriticized belief in things existing in themselves (thesis of the natural standpoint) is to be suspended in favor of an interrogation which considers things as phenomena, as they present themselves. This suspension is the phenomenological reduction.

(2) At the other extreme, it has been maintained that phenomenology is inherently idealistic, that by suspending belief in the independent existence of things, phenomenology makes it impossible to grant that things are other than mere products of conscious activity.

But again this misses the point: the reduction does not deny independent existence to things but only suspends our naive belief in this existence so as to interrogate it. In other words, phenomenology tries to understand how it is that we attribute independent existence to things, how—on the basis of the way things present themselves—we come to regard them as existing in themselves. In Merleau-Ponty’s terms, it is a question of how there can be an in-itself for-consciousness.

Thus phenomenology surpasses the alternatives of realism-idealism.

(3) Phenomenology requires that we situate ourselves in experience and attend to things as they present themselves. This has been taken to mean that phenomenology is a mere beholding in which we simply live through our engagement with things rather than thinking about that engagement.

But that is not so. Phenomenology, like all philosophy since Descartes, is reflective: phenomenology is not a matter of just living through our experience but of executing a reflection on experience and on things as experienced.

So Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology is a reflection on our originary experience in which things first show themselves, namely, perceptual experience. But Merleau-Ponty’s reflection on perceptual experience, his phenomenology of perception, does not proceed at random, arbitrarily. Rather, it is guided by what Merleau-Ponty intends to establish through the reflection; in other words, the very kind of reflection undertaken is dictated by what is to be established through it.

In general, Merleau-Ponty wants to establish the primacy of perception. In this regard we need to distinguish three issues.

First, perception is original.

That means perception is not reducible to thought, and the perceptual object is not reducible to an object of thought (something constituted by thought). Hence it must be shown by reflection that the perceptual sphere involves an opaqueness, a basis, which cannot be analyzed into something constituted by thought. Instead, this basis reveals itself as always already unaccountably there.

In the most general terms, this basis is the already established anchorage, engagement, of the subject in the world. Here “world” is to be understood not as an object of thought, or a mere sum of all things, but as the ultimate horizon from out of which all things announce themselves.

To say that the subject is anchored in the world is to say that the world is always already there, that the subject is always already situated and “knows its way around” in the midst of things. It is to say that the subject is being-in-the-world (être au monde), being-to or -toward the world.

Here it is evident how the kind of reflection required is dictated by what is to be established. It is not a matter of a reflection which penetrates the perceptual dimension (since to penetrate it would amount to showing that it is reducible to thought). Instead, there is required a reflection which in some way brings to light the opaqueness inherent in the perceptual dimension without dissolving that opaqueness. It is a matter of a reflection which reveals the world “as strange and paradoxical” and which reveals perceptual consciousness as always already present to the world, as being-in-the-world.

Second, perception is autonomous with respect to thought.

Not only is perception irreducible to thought but it also does not presuppose thought, is not in any way based on thought. Again, this will require a curious kind of reflection.

Third, perception founds thought.

That is, thought has its roots in perception; it originates out of perception and always retains its connection to perception. In general terms: reason has its roots in the pre-rational.

Now we can define more precisely the character of a phenomenology of perception: it is a transcendental reflection which proceeds in such a way as to bring to light the primacy of perceptual experience. That means: it brings to light the opaque, already established presence to the world (the presence presupposed by perception) and reveals the perceptual dimension as autonomous and founding.

This conception of a phenomenology of perception is precisely what Merleau-Ponty expresses in various ways in the Preface.

(1) Merleau-Ponty asks: “What is phenomenology?” He then proceeds to characterize phenomenology by a series of its seemingly contradictory intentions:

Phenomenology is the study of essences—but also puts essences back into existence and takes facticity as its starting point.

Phenomenology suspends the natural attitude—yet asserts that the world is always already there.

Phenomenology seeks to be philosophy as “rigorous science”—yet “is also an account of ‘lived’ space, ‘lived’ time, and the ‘lived’ world.”

In all these respects, the apparent conflict is simply an expression of that fundamental tension which we saw emerging in The Structure of Behavior and which we have expressed in several ways:

First, as the tension between consciousness as universal milieu and consciousness as rooted in subordinated dialectics (physical and vital orders).

Second, as the tension involved in a conception of a philosophy which, on the one hand, is transcendental and, on the other, preserves the truth of naturalism, the “dependence of mind.”

So it is the tension inherent in the concept of finite consciousness and finite philosophizing.

Third, as a tension with respect to phenomenology itself. On the one hand, phenomenology is transcendental and regards everything as it is for consciousness. On the other hand, phenomenology does not dissolve the object into something merely constituted by consciousness but rather brings to light an already established anchorage of consciousness in the world: the fact of its being-in-the-world.

(2) Merleau-Ponty proceeds to distinguish phenomenology from science and from traditional transcendental philosophy (and the idealism to which this leads). He does so by underscoring again the primacy of our perceptual engagement in the world.

Phenomenology seeks to return to our immediate experience of the world. As such, it undercuts or suspends science, because “the entire universe of science is built upon the lived world” (PP viii, ii–iii). Science is always a second-order expression of this underlying lived experience: “To return to the things themselves is to return to this world which is prior to knowledge in the usual sense, of which knowledge always speaks, and in relation to which every scientific determination is abstract, merely signitive, and dependent” (PP ix, iii).

By its return to the lived world, phenomenology is also entirely different than idealism, which seeks to reconstruct the world from the synthesizing activity of the subject. Phenomenology does not construct the world from a synthetic, judging activity and so does not exhibit the world as something constituted. Rather, for phenomenology, the world is always already there, prior to any judging activity.

(3) Thus the primary effort of phenomenology is devoted to letting the world as always already there come to light. “Phenomenology even directs all its effort toward rejoining this naive contact with the world and granting it, finally, philosophical status” (PP vii, i).

It is in terms of this task that Merleau-Ponty interprets Husserl’s reductions. Thus, the phenomenological reduction is executed not in order to trace everything back to the constitutive activity of consciousness but rather to bring to light the fact that the world is always already there. According to Merleau-Ponty: “precisely in order to see the world and to grasp it as paradoxical, we must break our familiarity with it, and . . . this break teaches us nothing but the unmotivated upsurge of the world. The greatest lesson of the reduction is the impossibility of a complete reduction” (PP xiv, viii).

In terms we have used earlier, Merleau-Ponty’s reflection is one designed to bring to light the opaqueness, the “always already there” at the heart of perceptual experience. And reflection can do this only if it is incomplete reflection: only if a complete reduction is impossible.

(4) The Preface concludes with some cryptic remarks regarding the character of phenomenological philosophy in general. Specifically, Merleau-Ponty suggests how a philosophy which proceeds in the way described must understand itself. Here we can distinguish two issues:

The general issue is that philosophy is always a problem for itself. That means philosophy, versus science, cannot take itself for granted and defer the justification of its method and standpoint to some higher discipline. “Philosophy itself must not take itself for granted” (PP xiv, ix).

Philosophy must, then, seek to give an account of itself; philosophical interrogation must simultaneously be self-interrogation:

Phenomenology, as revelatory of the world, rests on itself or, rather, provides its own foundation. On the other hand, all knowledge in the usual sense is erected upon a “base” of postulates and, ultimately, upon our communication with the world as the first establishment of rationality. Philosophy, as radical reflection, denies itself this resource as a matter of principle. Yet, since it too is in history, it too utilizes the world and constituted reason. It must therefore address to itself the question it addresses to all knowledge, and so it will constantly double back on itself and will be, as Husserl says, an infinite dialogue or infinite meditation. Insofar as it remains faithful to its intention, phenomenology will never know where it is heading. (PP xx–xxi, xvi)

In other words, philosophy can never take its standpoint, its own beginning, for granted but instead must continually return to an interrogation of its own beginnings. That is, philosophy involves a continual return to beginnings. (Husserl called himself a “perpetual beginner.”)

Second, the more specific issue is this: what does establishing the primacy of perception entail with respect to philosophical self-understanding? That is, if, having established the primacy of perception, we execute a return to beginnings, what can we then say about the beginnings, about the character of a philosophical standpoint? That is what Merleau-Ponty is anticipating at the end of the Preface.

Recall that Merleau-Ponty proposes to return to things as they present themselves perceptually—primarily on the grounds that whatever we come to know about things is based on this experience. It seems so obvious that one wonders how philosophy took 2,500 years to get around to making this return.

Indeed it is obvious that our primary access to things is through perception. But what is not obvious is that all of our knowledge of things is positively based on our perceptual experience. Instead, almost the whole tradition has argued that perception is only a means to knowledge, a means to be ignored once we attain to knowledge. That is, the tradition has supposed that there is a true order of things which knowledge mirrors. Perception, on the contrary, is only a confused image of this true order and is relevant only as a means by which to make the ascent to knowledge.

Now Merleau-Ponty is proposing to establish that the originary order is that of the perceptual dimension, that ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Key to the Citations of Merleau-Ponty’s Works
• Introduction
• I. The Structure of Behavior
• II. Phenomenology of Perception
• Editor’s Afterword
• Index
• About the Authors