MERLEAU-PONTY AND TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY
Douglas Low
In this essay I will respond to a number of more primary sentience) to ground rational issues raised by Steven Crowell's excellent es discourse. I will begin with a brief exposition say "The Project of Ultimate Grounding and of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy as it relates to the Appeal to Intersubjectivity in Recent Tran these issues and will then proceed to scendental Philosophy."' I will do so by using specifically address the issues as they are Merleau-Ponty's philosophy. Crowell makes a raised by Crowell in his essay. useful distinction "between two important ver In his Phenomenology of Perception, when sions of transcendental philosophy-the neo addressing the nature of the subject of experi Kantian version oriented toward justification ence, including the untenable nature of a tran of principles and the phenomenological ver scendental ego, Merleau-Ponty says, "the sub sion oriented toward clarification of meaning" ject of sensation is neither a thinker who takes (Crowell 31). Using Merleau-Ponty's philoso note of a quality, nor an inert setting which is phy, I will support the latter ( with some qualifi affected or changed by it, it is a power which is cation) and criticize the former: the only way born into, and simultaneously with, a certain to ground knowledge about experience is to existential environment, or is synchronized use experience itself, and, even though propo with it."2 The subject of sensation is not an ab nents of the first version have moved away stract intellectual consciousness or an inert from Kant's belief in an isolated rational tran setting but an embodied existential subject, an scendental subject, by way of the so-called embodied subject that is already and always a "linguistic turn," I will argue that they still un part of the world upon which it opens. For ra tenably seek a priori conditions that are neces tionalism, with its move toward the transcen sary for the possibility of any rational dis dental rational conditions of experience, sen course. I will argue that they untenably seek to sations become thought about intellectually ground our knowledge of experience by ap identified sensations, sensations that are intel pealing to something outside it. They may be lectually identified in a whole series of per gin with experience (as Kant did), but they spectives. Yet if the objects of perception be move toward the transcendental conditions of come the abstract conceptual representations experience (at least toward a priori linguistic of the mind (or merely linguistic expressions), conditions, if not Kant's logical schemata) that then it is impossible to say "that I see with my make experience possible. For experience to eyes or hear with my ears," since they also be be meaningful, this position claims, it must be come objects of reflection (or merely expres framed by language. While Merleau-Ponty sions of language) with no subjective side. likewise argues that experience is framed by (Karl-Otto Apel, whom Crowell rightfully language, it is by a language that is a sublima cites as a representative of those who argue for tion of the experience itself, not by the suppos a linguistic/pragmatic a priori, tends to sepa edly "ultimate" conditions that make experi rate the transcendental and the empirical, tends ence and the discussion of it possible. For the to separate the transcendental conditions for neo-Kantians, this language transcends expe the expression of language from the speaking rience, rather than sublimates it, as I will argue subjects, as we shall see below.) What we must below. I will also argue against Crowell's use do, then, is explain or trace the move from the of Levinas's ethical sentiment (and for pre-reflectively lived-through perception to Merleau-Ponty's mixture of sentiment with a the expressions of conceptually (and thus PHILOSOPHY TODAY FALL 2013 279 linguistically) articulated objects, not just its origin is anterior to myself, it arises from intellectually conceive or linguistically sensibility which has preceded it and which express perception from outside of it. will outlive it" (PhP 216). This means that "ev In tracing this move, we will also have to re ery perception takes place in an atmosphere of think the relation between the for-itself and the generality and is presented to us anony in-itself, and this, in fact, is what Merleau mously." "So, if I wanted to render precisely Ponty believes he is beginning with his criti the perceptual experience, I ought to say that cism of the subject of experience as a detached one perceives in me, and not that I perceive" thinker or an inert setting. Moreover, it is with (PhP 215). This means that there is a pre-per this criticism that he begins to re-define "sen sonal dimension to perceptual experience and sation as co-existence or communion," as the that it is limited by pre-given situations and co-existence of the embodied subject and the profiles. I see things from a certain time and world, and as their subsequent interaction and place, within a certain horizon of implied pos communion (PhP 213). "Let us be more ex sible perspectives, within a horizon of things plicit. The sensor and the sensible do not stand that are at the moment invisible, that is, not in relation to each other as two mutually exter presently in view. Vision thus includes this nal terms. . .. It is my gaze which subtends open dimension, this open horizon of sense color ... or rather my gaze pairs off with color. that remains implied. Vision, then, is a lived .. and in this transaction between the subject of through sense that is both tied to a situation and sensation and the sensible it cannot be held open to others. While it is true that my con that one acts while the other suffers the action, sciousness is co-natural with the event, and or that one confers significance on the other" that it makes no sense to speak of the event (PhP 214). It is the lived-through interaction without this awareness, the meaning of the between the embodied perceiver and the world event is not constituted by me but found in the that produces sense. Perceptual meaning is event where it is, along with its horizon. formed where the active, embodied subject Merleau-Ponty proceeds to ask here how it meets and couples with the world. "Thus a sen is that rationalism ends up by conceiving the sible datum which is on the point of being felt subject as pure consciousness fully aware of it sets a kind of muddled problem for my body self and fully aware of the object as pure exten [not just thought or language alone] to solve. I sion. Now it is true, he admits, that if we start must find the attitude which will provide it with consciousness defined as a purely self with the means of becoming determinate, of conscious rationality, then, as Kant says, "the I showing up as blue; I must find the reply to a think must be able to occupy all our represen question which is obscurely expressed. And tations" (PhP 219). Yet why, he asks, must we yet I do so only when I am invited by it, my atti start with the self defined in such as way? The tude is never sufficient to make me really see typical answer is that in order to speak ratio blue .... The sensible gives back to me what I nally about the subject and the world we must lent to it, but this is only what I took from it in represent them rationally. We are only taking the first place" (PhP 214). 3 up the conditions that are necessary for the Sensation, then, is not an inert setting, subject and object to be experienced as such, blindly conditioned, as traditional empiricism/ the rationalist proclaims. "And indeed," materialism has maintained, nor is sensation Merleau-Ponty confirms, "at the level of con something that I accomplished, that I think or stituted speech, such is in fact the significance linguistically create or will. It is accomplished of world and subject. But from where do the by my body, by my aware and active bodily words themselves derive their sense?" (PhP functions, in a world that pre-exists me. As 219). A more radical reflection, he says, Merleau-Ponty expresses it, "sensation neces should not just produce a result, concepts ex sarily appears to itself in a setting of generality, pressed in language, but it should also be PHILOSOPHY TODAY 280 aware of how the results are achieved. "Radi experience that is prior to them. Merleau cal reflection is what takes hold of me as I am Ponty will therefore claim, a priori, that all in the act of forming and formulating the ideas sensation is spatial, but he is able to do so only of subject and object, and brings to light the because all experience is constituted factually source of these two ideas" (PhP 2 I 9). Radical in a setting that is space. We do not experience reflection, then, seeks to grasp the act as an act, isolated sense data and then bring to them an as a verb rather than a thing or a noun, and it re abstract spatial coordination. As the sentient mains sufficiently aware of itself to realize that body lives the sensible world, prior to being it cannot place itself outside of this act in order abstractly thought, experience takes the form to fully grasp or construct it as a thing. Reflec of sensations spread out in space. There is thus, tion necessarily remains partial and incom for Merleau-Ponty, an empirical a priori. Since plete, even with the additional awareness that all sensation is given as spread out in space, all it is able to bring to light. Or, as Merleau-Ponty sensation is necessarily spatial. Insofar as we expresses it here, in reference to Kant, the re can speak of a transcendental emerging form flective / is expressed in conceptual formula Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology, this is it: a tions while pre-reflective experience remains certain aspect of experience is given so rou an active openness upon the world. Thus, what tinely and regularly (all perception is spatial, is given first, what is primary, is not a pure ra for example) that it deserves to be called an tional subject and a purely conceived rational empirical a priori; it deserves to be called a object, but experience, openness to a pre-exis transcendental condition, a condition in whose tent world. "What is given is not consciousness absence experience simply would not take or pure being; it is, as Kant himself profoundly place. Yet for Merleau-Ponty, this abstract put it, experience, in other words the commu condition is given in and by experience itself. nication of a finite subject with an opaque be It is drawn directly from our experience and is ing from which it emerges but to which it re thus open to further alteration by all future mains committed. It is [quoting Husserl] 'pure experience, even if this alternative is unlikely. and, in a way, still mute experience which it is a Now, the a priori has traditionally been as question of bringing to the pure expression of sociated with pure thought or purely concep its own significance"' (PhP 219). Thus, we do tual relationships between ideas. As an ab not experience the world or ourselves as straction, in the principle of logical identity completed by a rational synthesis. We (written symbolically as "A is A"), the predi experience both "as an open totality the cate term is included in the subject term, and synthesis of which is inexhaustible" (PhP there is no need to go beyond the conceptual 219). relationship between the meanings of the This, Merleau-Ponty maintains, brings us terms to know that this is true. On the other to a new conception of the a priori-which, hand, the proposition that "All swans are however, still has its origins in Kant's thought. white" is a posteriori, since we must learn from Kant himself claimed that the a priori is not empirical observation that this is true, that the prior to experience, that experience announces subject and predicate terms are related as they itself as the beginning of all knowledge. Yet, are. Yet, for Merleau-Ponty, since abstract for Kant, an effort must then be made to find concepts are intimately related to language, the conceptual conditions that are necessary and, in fact, cannot occur without it, and since for experience to be possible. Contrarily, language always occurs in natural, empirical, Merleau-Ponty argues that as soon as Kant ad social, and historical contexts, then even sup mits that we must begin with experience, he posedly a priori relationships are situated admits that there is no clear distinction be within prior historical conditions. Conse tween the a priori and the factual, for the neces quently, there are no purely conceptual rela sary a priori conditions are predicated on the tionships. There are no conceptual relation- MERLEAU-PONTY AND TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY 281 ships that occur outside or independent of the this means that the truths of Euclid's geometry contexts just mentioned above.4 themselves are expressed in a tradition, in a Merleau-Ponty proceeds to make the point discipline of knowledge that has a history and here that each sense has its own specific way of a past-and if this history was lost, its ideas experiencing space, thus rendering Kant's uni would have to be recreated. Time thus provides versal a priori of space untenable and returning a model by which we can understand linguistic it to its origins in empirical experience. A blind acquisition. For Merleau-Ponty time is not a patient who has had his vision surgically re collection of discrete moments, with a moment stored can see but does not recognize what he that fully occupies present existence and past sees, for visual space appears nothing like the moments that disappear as soon as they no lon tactile space of his previous non-visual experi ger present. Time, rather, is a gestalt, with the ence. So much so that the patient is even un present gradually shading into the past and to able to visually recognize his own hand. Yet, ward the future. Here the past does not have to contrarily, it is not as if the tactile has no spatial sense at all, since the patient does moves his be explicitly recalled by the present but re hand towards objects that he sees. Even though mains on the horizon and thus continues to in there is no abstract concept of space that both fluence the present, even without an explicit the tactile and the visual fit neatly within, the act of recall. Human existence thus continues patient's act of reaching means that the two are to carry the past as the present moves toward comparable at least in some sense. The differ the future. Time, then, is an atmosphere, a nat ent senses do communicate with one another, ural process, that we exist within and help ac even though there is no exact transposition of complish because we are aware of the unfold one to the other, and the senses do communi ing of the process. Human thought, then, cate because they are a part of the same body occurs and is acquired in this same process, and open upon a common world. In fact, this dimension of time. There is no intellectual Merleau-Ponty claims it is the isolation of the achievement, no truth, no truth of reason that senses that is artificial and is achieved only does not occur in time and that is not acquired with a highly specific and analytic attitude. in history. Truth, then, is built out of past ac Any theory, in this case a theory of the a priori complishments and past errors, for at least part and a posteriori, must explain the facts, must of our view of truth is conditioned by our er explain experience as it is ordinarily lived, as it rors, by what we discover is not true (PhP 393). ordinarily appears to the experiencing subject. "Thus," Merleau-Ponty is able to conclude, Kant's theory of the purely rational a priori "every truth of fact is a truth of reason, and vice cannot make sense of the different kinds of spatial experience, while Merleau-Ponty here versa." Moreover, he proceeds to detail how puts forth a theory that is able to do so. this is achieved: Furthermore, just because there is some The relation of reason to fact, or eternity to time, thing that pre-exists the act of linguistic ex like that of reflection to the unreflective, of thought pression, this does not mean that ideas (like to language or of thought to perception is this two Euclid's geometry) express some eternal truth way relationship that phenomenology has called that somehow pre-exists our language. What Fundierung: the founding term, or originator pre-exists the linguistic expression is not ab time, the unreflective, the fact, language, percep stract thought but the temporal/spatial world of tion-is primary in the sense that the originated is perception-which all language attempts to presented as a determinate or explicit form of the express. This means that all the truths that are originator, which prevents the latter from reab expressed in language rest upon the tempo sorbing the former, and yet the originator is not pri rally unfolding world of perception, and that mary in the empiricist sense and the originated is they rest upon an accumulated past. Moreover, not simply derived from it, since it is through the PHILOSOPHY TODAY 282 originated that the originator is made manifest. indeclinable, for without it there is no meaning (PhP 394) or consciousness, without it there would be nothing for the word "cogito" to refer to. Yet Our experience does not open upon a pre-exis this lived-through perceptual consciousness, tent truth, either in the form of facts or es as we have seen, has only a partial or provi sences, but upon concrete things and events in sional hold upon the world and itself. It has a a way that allows us to take them up and carry partial hold on the world because this hold is them forward. This temporal nature of experi perspectival, and it is only a provisional hold ence is what allows us to connect our experi on itself because the pre-reflective temporally ences with each other and our experiences with slips away from the reflective. Human subjec the experiences lived-through by others. Ex tivity "does not constitute the world, it divines perience opens to a world and a temporality the world's presence round about it as a field that the experiencer exists within and is a part not provided by itself; nor does it constitute the of. "All consciousness is, in some measure, word, but speaks as we sing when we are perceptual consciousness," even our con happy; nor again the meaning of the word, sciousness of the abstract truths of reason, for which instantaneously emerges for it in its all consciousness is temporal, and as such each dealing with the world and other men living in moment of experience that is carried forward it" (PhP 404 ). This pre-reflective contact with from the past is drawn together with other ex oneself, the awareness of awareness, which periences. Thus every moment of experience, constitutes human subjectivity and human ex including that of abstract reasoning, occurs istence, exists prior to any act of linguistic within a context of past experiences that moti expression. In fact, it is that which allows any vate the truths of the present. This means of linguistic expression to take on a meaning. course that there is no thought that is com And yet, this tacit lived-through awareness pletely given to reflective consciousness, that must wait to be expressed. There is a meaning there is no thought that is fully present to to lived-through experience, but this meaning reflection that appears without a background needs further perceptual confirmation and ex of presuppositions (PhP 393-95). pression in language to be made more precise. However, even though all thought occurs in But, it could be said, if subjectivity cannot some prior context, all thought, all words grasp itself in act, that is, if it is never fully would mean nothing if I did not take them up present to itself, how then does it come about? from within, ifl was not aware of them and did How does that which is lived-through, which is not carry them along. Thus, I cannot simply be not a thinking act, become so? Merleau-Ponty equated with a series of acts of consciousness, answers that it is true that the subject of lived as Hume argued, for these acts are held to through experience is not an intellectual sub gether by an awareness that pulls them to ject, that this subject does not think the world gether. Yet, this awareness is not that of a re but perceives it. However, since the subject is flective self outside of time, but that to which not a thing, the subject is aware. The subject is the individual acts appear. Should we then as a composite whole that is aware of itself, that sume that language possesses us without our realizes that the whole precedes its parts. "My awareness, that it leads us along to express our vision, for example, is certainly 'thinking that I world in a certain way without our being aware see,' if we mean thereby that it is not simply a of it? Merleau-Ponty answers that "this would bodily function like digestion or respiration, a be to forget half the truth," for words would be collection of processes so grouped as to have a meaningless if they did not somehow connect significance in a larger system, but that it is it with our experience as we live it, "if the spoken self that system and that significance, that cogito did not encounter within me a tacit anteriority of the future to the present, of the cogito" (PhP 402). This tacit cogito is whole to its parts" (PhP 404). However, since MERLEAU-PONTY AND TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY 283 all vision involves an operative intention, and itself contracted into a comprehensive grasp, since intention by its very nature leaves as and on the other the body itself as a knowing pects of the object yet to be perceived, no vi body" (PhP 408). This unity of the world and sion is complete. The operative intentional vi the body are not based on an act of reflective, sion of the lived subject is aware of objects but rational consciousness. This unity is lived this awareness is also aware of them as incom rather than known. And if this is the case, then plete. Vision is thus aware of itself as reaching the unity of the world that has traditionally the world but it is not a thinking of seeing in the been based on a pre-existent rationality really sense of being fully present to itself and its ob draws its sense of cogency from our lived ject as it perceives. Perception is aware of itself through encounter with the world. and is aware of itself as reaching the world, yet We are in the world, which means that things take it is aware of reaching a world that is already shape, an immense individual asserts itself, each there, and that is thus not constituted by the existence is self-comprehensive and comprehen subject, and, in addition, it is aware that it can sive of the rest. All that has to be done is to recog not grasp itself as fully constituted, since pre nize these phenomena which are the ground of all reflective perception always temporally slips our certainties. The belief in an absolute mind, or away from the act of intellectual constitution. in a world in-itself detached from us is no more We have seen above that the world is insep than a rationalization of this primordial faith. (PhP arable from our perception of the world-even 409) though its independent existence is also given to us in this perception. What this means here, It is appropriate here to mention that what it means to experience an always already Charles Taylor has made the claim that both existing world that is nevertheless given only Hegel and Merleau-Ponty (as well as others) through perception, is that the lived-through accept Kant's refutation of idealism and use it perceptual field is always already meaningful, to undermine the modernist claim that human that there is no hyle that waits to be formed by knowledge is primarily and essentially a con the reflective concepts of a transcendental ra ceptual representation, in the mind of the iso tional subject. I am not a transcendental ego ra lated rational individual, of an already ratio tionally synthesizing the moments of experi nally structured world. Kant essentially argued ence from outside of them. I am "one single that the unity of experience would be impossi experience inseparable from itself, one single ble without the stable objects of the world, 'living cohesion,' one single temporality since the connection of experiences (or ideas) which is engaged, from birth, in making itself to one another requires some stable content progressively explicit, and in confirming that which can only be provided by the world. Con cohesion in each successive present." This sciousness, than, must be regarded not as an awareness of and confirmation of preceding isolate awareness of a private rational interior experiences that pulls them into the present but as a relationship to the world. Conscious and projects them into the future without ness must be regarded as in the world and at the which experience would be impossible is the world's objects.5 Yet there is an inconsistency truth of the "I think." However, we must under in Kant's thought, since he slips back into ide stand the "I think" as "'I belong to myself' alism with his claim that we must turn back while belonging to the world," as a synthesis in from experience to the conceptual, a priori the making, not as a transcendental ego outside conditions that allow this experience to be pos of time, space and the world, that is a complete sible. With this move, according to Hegel, possession of itself and the world (PhP 407). Kant assumes that there is a separation be "The ontological world and body which we tween our knowledge, as a conceptual repre find at the core of the subject are not the world sentation of the object, and the object as it is in or body as idea, but on the one hand the world itself. Yet, Hegel continues, this is Kant's fun- PHILOSOPHY TODAY 284 damental mistake, i.e., to separate conscious perceptual, operative experience of the world. ness and our knowledge of the world from the As our experience changes or gets more world itself, since the only way we can possi precise, we must adapt our theory, and we must bly be aware that our knowledge is not reach do so continually. ing the object is to have some experience of the In a 1952 prospectus of his work, 6 in which object that we are not reaching. Hegel's answer Merleau-Ponty briefly states what he believes to the question of the criteria by which to judge is the significance of his first two books, The our knowledge of the world is that the criteria Structure of Behavior1 and Phenomenology of must come from experience itself and not to be Perception, the author also maps out the direc assumed or introduced from outside of experi tion of his future research. He believes that his ence. He thus answers the skeptic by saying early works have established the originality of that the only way that we can call one claim perceptual meaning, i.e., that this meaning into question is by another that we accept, thus cannot be derived from anything else, and that refuting the skeptics belief that the unreliabil his future work will lay out the move beyond ity of one knowledge claim leads the unreli perception to language that is necessary to ar ability of all knowledge claims. Merleau rive at an intersubjective expression of truth. Ponty follows Hegel (and even Husserl) here He believes that his work as a whole "would be with the claim that the "crossing out" of one metaphysics itself and would at the same time belief does not lead the annihilation of all give us the principle of an ethics." We have al knowledge claims, since this crossing out re ready witnessed this "metaphysics" above, lies on another claim that is accepted, and, i.e., we have seen that consciousness must be even more, always remains within the context understood as the body's openness upon a of the horizon of the experienced world. Even shared or public world. Truth and a theory negated beliefs remain within it, even if now as about what is real (i.e., a metaphysics) must be only crossed out. When discussing myth in based upon this shared perceptual world. As I Phenomenology ofPerception, Merleau-Ponty open upon it, with interests and desires, and as admits that myths, like theories, act as general I open upon it with others, whose interests and explanations, as general ways of conceptually desires I must negotiate, truth is achieved with ordering our world. Myth, in fact, is half way the agreement of profiles, of mine within me as to theory, but, problematically, it cannot be I actively open upon the world, and of mine proved or disproved. Thus it doesn't go far with those lived through by others, as we ac enough. Yet modernist theory goes too far, tively open upon the world together. This since it claims to be completely objective. It agreement, this "lateral universal," will not be claims to stand outside of the theoretical expla perfect or without residual differences. Yet, nation and to grasp the objective evidence for hopefully it will be enough for us to success it. As we have already seen above, Merleau fully adapt to the world together, and to do so Ponty argues against the possibility of stand in a way that recognizes the ethical value of all. ing outside of our theoretical orientations, that Also, for Merleau-Ponty, the very act of the they must flow from experience itself, remain recognition of the other human being involves situated within it, even though we can make both sentience and sentiment, and involves some judgment about which theory is the most them both together, since perception overlaps clarifying. Moreover, he states that we must with the body's motor functions. The percep focus on our bodily being-in-the-world, on our tion of the color red, for example, tends to active engagement with the world, and on our wards abduction, while blue favors adduction operative intentionality. We must construct ex (PhP 209). Moreover, since perceptual con planations that make sense of our perceptual, sciousness must be understood as an active operative engagement in the world. And we relationship to the world, and since intention must test these explanations against our actual ality must be understood primarily as an opera- MERLEAU-PONTY AND TRANSCENDENT AL PHILOSOPHY 285 tive intentionality, i.e., as the body's aware, ac self and with the world as well as a relationship tive engagement in the world, when I perceive with the other; hence it is established in the three another person's behavior,8 when I perceive dimensions at the same time. And it must be this person's active engagement in the world, I brought to appear directly in the infrastructure of am able to catch a glimpse of the meaning this vision. Brought to appear, we say, and not brought behavioral orientation. Thus it is through this to birth. 11 sort of "postural impregnation" or postural He says much the same thing in his lecture coupling, accomplished by the perceiving, "The Problem of Speech." sentient, feeling body that I am able to glimpse another person's meaningful orientation to The relations with others, intelligence, and lan ward and engagement in the world, that I am guage cannot be set out in a lineal and causal se able to see another person's humanity. In fact, ries: they belong to those cross-currents where the body's very interaction with the world and someone lives. Speech, said Michelet, is our others, from birth, is sensual, and thus fre mother speaking. Thus while speech puts the child in a more profound relation to she who names ev- quently involves pleasure and pain. The ery thing and puts being into words, it also trans mother's or father's gentle caress (or harsh re lates this relation into a more general idea." buke) is sensed by the child as a sentiment. The body's very interaction with its environment, Moreover, when Merleau-Ponty speaks of from birth, is needful and involves a "negotia the recognition of the other, he speaks of rec tion" with the world and others to enhance ognizing both the sameness and difference of pleasure and avoid pain. For this negotiation to the other, in spite of the claim that he reduces 13 succeed, the child must develop a "reality prin the other to the same. "I borrow myself from ciple," must check her perspectives against the others; I create others from my own thought. world and those lived through by others (as we This is no failure to perceive others; it is the 14 have just seen above). Moreover, this recogni perception of others." If the other remained tion of the other, both worldly and human, will an absolute other, with no recognition of same advance through stages, as Merleau-Ponty rec ness, then, there would be no empathy or sym ognizes,9 and as both Piaget and Kohlberg pathy toward the other, no genuine connection have demonstrated, if not in detail at least in with him or her. Yet, critics rightly claim that if broad outline. 10 This latter point will be dealt the other is reduced to the same, then there is with in greater detail below, but for now we no real other, just oneself. But it is precisely a should emphasize that sentience and sentiment balanced position that Merleau-Ponty main are not experienced as isolated avenues of ex tains, that we must recognize the other as dif ferent from ourselves but as also similar. In perience but are given together as intersecting Phenomenology of Perception, discussing elements of the whole of experience. This is Husserl, Merleau-Ponty clearly recognizes the the way Merleau-Ponty expresses this holistic problem of the other for Husserl's transcen nature of experience in The Visible and the dental, constituting consciousness, since, he Invisible: reports, even Husserl recognizes the problem At the frontier of the mute and solipsist world of the other, that there was something outside where, in the presence of other seers, my visible is of consciousness that consciousness could not confirmed as an exemplar of a universal visibility, constitute (PhP xiv). 15 And in "The Child Rela we reach a second or figurative meaning of vision, tions with Other," as already noted, when dis which will be the intuitus mentis or idea, a subli cussing the origins of the other for the child, he mation of the flesh, which will be mind or though 1. clearly recognizes that the child empathizes But the factual presence of other bodies could not and bonds with the other by way of the experi produce thought or the idea if its seeds were not in ence referred to as a "postural impregnation." 16 my own body. Thought is a relationship with one- Thus when Merleau-Ponty speaks of the rec- PHILOSOPHY TODAY 286 ognition of the other, he clearly has in mind rience itself, and, subsequently, rather than that this involves recognizing both the others seeing language as a sublimation of experi difference and sameness. ence that folds back upon it. More specifically, With this brief summary of some of the Apel is moving here from the evidence of per main themes of Merleau-Ponty philosophy in sonal, individual consciousness to the inter mind, let us now proceed to consider a number subjective validity of language as if they were of issues raised by Crowell in his above men completely different, as iflanguage transcends tioned essay, "The Project of Ultimate personal consciousness, rather than tracing Grounding and the Appeal to Intersubjectivity how they are connected, how perceptual con in recent Transcendental Philosophy." sciousness is sublimated in language, how lan As Crowell informs us, even though Kant's guage folds back upon perception to help ex transcendental ego has largely been aban press more precisely what is motivated by doned by contemporary scholars, some still perception, rather than grasping the chiasm be embrace Kantian style arguments (Crowell tween personal perception and intersubjective 21 ). Karl-Otto Apel, for example, still seeks to language. As we have seen, within the context argue for and to establish the conditions of the of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy, from its very possibility of rational discourse and genuine beginning perceptual evidence for me occurs intersubjectivity. This is how Apel puts it in in the context of an experience that opens upon "The Problem of Philosophical Foundations in a shared public world. (Apel admits that the Light of a Transcendental Pragmatics of self is formed in relation to others, but for him Language": this other is the linguistic other.) Moreover, we First, contrary to the view of the modem theory of have already seen that perceptual experience, knowledge from Descartes to Husserl, evidential which already has a general side, is expressed consciousness for me ... cannot in principle be in language, but, even more, expression itself equated with the intersubjective validity of argu (the means of expression, the vocal gesturing) ments. The reason for this lies in the mediating must be grasped as a prolongation of percep function of language, conceived as the transcen tual experience. Since perception is already an dental condition of the possibility of an active orientation toward the world, and since intersubjectivity valid interpretation of the world." the word's meaning, in part, expresses our lived-through active, interested, and even And this is how Crowell expresses Apel's po emotional encounter with the world, linguistic sition, drawing from other sources: or vocal gesturing must be seen as a prolonga tion of this active perceptual encounter. Here Since the "autonomous evidence of conscious in Apel's work, the intersubjective expression ness" only becomes philosophically relevant when the philosopher who appeals to it engages in argu of language transcends, rather than subli mentation, it is always "linguistically mediated" mates, personal perception. Even though Apel and thus implicated in the "a priori of language." seems to admit that all experience must be re Thisa priori is not simply a matteroflogically syn lated to the subject's first person experience, tactic or abstract semantic rules but includes a Crowell rightly informs us that "Apel insists pragmatic or "performative" dimension tied to that this [first person] intuitive moment can conditions of communicative rationality. (Crowell have only an empirical function-evidence 37) 11 can only confirm what the argumentation com munity establishes" (Crowell 38). 19 But, we A few critical comments should be offered must respond, what the argumentative com here regarding Apel's philosophy, for his main munity establishes must be based on some argument takes us back to the conditions of thing, must be a sublimation of something, possibility of experience, to intellectual pre otherwise the intuitive consensus of language suppositions, rather than remaining with expe- is empty and arbitrary. We have already seen MERLEAU-PONTY AND TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY 287 that Jinguistic consensus cannot be based on tribution of perception, since the consensus is logic alone, since logic itself is an abstraction created by working through or from our open from experience that is patterned but also im ness upon a publically perceptual world, is cre precise, open (for example, the front of the ated by way of our sublimation of our shared building opens to the back that is implied), and perceptual life. Individual perceptions, which dialectical (with aspects influencing each open upon and cross into a public field that other simultaneously). Also, abstract disci crosses back into it, provide the basis for the plines like logic and geometry have a history consensus. Individual perceptions do not just and occur in historical and cultural context provide confirmation for the linguistic consen which remain imprecise, like a gestalt sus as an afterthought, as if the linguistic con background. The consensus, then, in the most sensus came first, established who knows how. fundamental sense, must be based upon a True, the consensus supports all the individual perceptual experience that from its very perceptions; it helps confirm each individual beginning opens upon and intersects with a perceptual perspective. Yet it is also true that shared publicly perceptible world that each individual's perspective helps give rise to continually runs beyond us. and provide the basis for the consensus. And We have seen that Merleau-Ponty's philos true, I must ground knowledge in my experi ophy accounts for how individual perception ence, but, from the very beginning, this experi crosses into the anonymous functions of the ence is never taken completely as mine, since it body that carry the perceiver into a public opens upon and intersects with a public field world, whether wi1Jed or not. We have seen that includes others. The evidence of individ that his philosophy accounts for how an indi ual perceptual consciousness is thus philo vidual perceptual perspective, say of a room sophically relevant because it first appears to around a particular perceiver, occurs from a an experiencing subject as he/she opens upon a particular place but also opens out to and over publicly perceivable world, and speech is laps with other possible perceptual perspec philosophically relevant as an attempt to pro tives and even to a space in general. We have vide evidence because it helps articulate the seen that his philosophy accounts of how an in subject's openness upon this publicly percepti dividual's speech sublimates the perceptual ble world. In addition, this consensus should and thus helps create but also opens upon an not and cannot confirm what is not originally intersubjective field of linguistic meanings drawn from the perceived. It doesn't create the that crosses back into it. Yet we now see that perceptual meaning. It can help express and ar Apel's philosophy does not account for the ticulate more precisely what is there. It can crisscrossing into one another of the personal help frame it, and it can help frame it in a vari and the impersonal, of the personal and the ety of ways, but the measurant (the inter intersubjective, of the perceptual and the lin subjective language) is measured against the guistic. We now see that this amounts to a sort measure, against our common perception of a of dualistic thinking, with linguistic, inter really existing world. 20 Perception, then, acts subjective consensus set against individual as the primary term for the creation oflinguis perceptions, instead of having them cross into tic expressions as well as for their confirma one another. Or, insofar as Apel does discuss tion, and this means that the linguistic consen the interchange of linguistic consensus and in sus doesn't come prior to the facts but is based dividual perception, perception plays only a upon them. In brief, Apel's transcendental ar secondary role of confirmation that comes af gument claims that communication presup ter the linguistic consensus, but that plays no poses rules. These rules, he admits, are not pri role in creating the consensus in the first place. marily logical but pragmatic and performative. Yet, again, we should respond, there can be no A speaker, he says, must recognize when his or linguistic consensus without the original con- her utterance breaks the rules of a particular PHILOSOPHY TODAY 288 language game, and these rules are not empiri for the subject is only formed in this exchange. cal but ultimate.21 But, as we have just seen, Crowell thus concludes, these rules, acting as part of our linguistic this impasse has been diagnosed by Levinas: the framework, should not be regarded as ultimate ethical claim of the Other must reach me prior to grounds for the possibility of experience and the constitution of an interchangeable intersubject communication about it but as abstractions ivity; hence there is a first-person condition that and generalizations from it; they flow from eludes the transcendental subject (as community and are suggested by experience, by a percep of sign interpreters) while malcing it possible. To tual world of stable structures that we attempt ground the interchangeability presupposed by ar to adapt to together. They don't make experi gumentation, a certain "rationalism" in Apel's ap ence possible but are drawn from our experi proach to subjectivity must be overcome. (Crowell ence. Thus it is the perceptual experience of a 41) publically shared world that provides even the 22 sense of our linguistic a priori. Yes, we should agree, a certain rationalistic Crowell mentions that Apel appeals to an prejudice should be overcome, and it should be "ideal 'community of sign interpretation' ... as overcome by a phenomenological, perceptual, something counterfactually anticipated as the "knowing" subject, as has been described by horizon of communicative interaction" Merleau-Ponty's work, and thus not by a re which means that no first person can occupy turn to the subject of either Kant or Husserl, that position. But, Apel still doesn't want the but by the chiasm of perception and language, experiencing subject to dissolve into anony of self and other, of subjectivity and intersub mous linguistic structures-since some sub jectivity. Thus here we must disagree with jective intentionality is still needed. Thus, Crowell and claim that Apel's intersubjective Crowell claims, Apel "equivocates between tum does fail to be self-grounding because it phenomenological description ... of transcen fails to ground the intersubjective argument in dental experience and a neo-Kantian appeal to the lived-through perceptual experience of the an anonymous transcendental principle ( or community's individual interlocutors. It fails 'regulative idea')" (Crowell 39). Yet, he con to integrate (chiasm) the intersubjective with tinues, "the argument that Apel's intersub the subjective, the linguistic with the jective tum fails to be self-grounding because perceptual. (More on this below.) it loses connection with the first-person per Crowell does mention that Bernard spective does not, however, tum on a claim of Waldenfels (whose work is deeply informed epistemic pre-eminence for the individual by Merleau-Ponty's, although this is not men subject" (Crowell 40). Crowell continues, tioned by Crowell) does take up a number of rather, it identifies a "rationalistic prejudice" -an criticisms of the "rationalism" offered by both unclarified relation to the empirical-in Apel's Apel and Habermas (Crowell 41-42). A few of claim that the "I argue" is an unsurpassable presup these points should be mentioned. Both Apel position for philosophy. Is the argument commu and Habermas fail to account for the move nity really a presuppositionless starting point? from the lived-through (lived-through percep Here the epistemic aspect of the problem of self tion and the lifeworld) to language, from the grounding yields to the ethical. (Crowell 40) subjective to the intersubjective. Crowell men tions that for Waldenfels both the "content" of According to Crowell, Apel cannot account different experiences and their "modes of or for my obligation to treat personal needs as ganization" are specific to "particular histori intersubjective, social, ethical claims-since cal-cultural lifeworlds" (Crowell 43). If the he "denies that there is any meaningful 'out latter is the case, i.e., if modes of rational orga side' to the community of argumentation," i.e., nization are specific or even relative, then, as there is no subject prior to linguistic exchange, Crowell mentions, one option Waldenfels MERLEAU-PONTY AND TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY 289 must face is the reconfiguration of reason. This Crowell can now be addressed, albeit briefly in is an option that Waldenfels pursues and he summary form. does so by primarily following the reconfigu I) He asks, is the phenomenological reduc ration already accomplished by Merleau tion to lived-through experience self-justify Ponty. Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological ra ing? If it isn't, what is it that demands the tionality becomes, most primarily, an agree phenomenological reduction? (Crowell 46). ment of perceptual profiles, within the individ We have seen numerous times, when discuss ual as he or she opens upon and is actively ing the phenomenological methods of Hegel engaged in the world, and between individuals and Merleau-Ponty, that one experience is as they open upon and engage the world to questioned by another that is more accurate. gether. (This agreement is of course assisted This is given in experience itself. Moreover, by language.) Yet, Crowell expresses his for Merleau-Ponty the reduction is not com dissatisfaction with this sort of attempt to plete; it does not and will not provide absolute ground phenomenology in the lifeworld itself. certainty, some indubitable starting point for Is Waldenfels' conception of a lifeworld ground a human knowledge. Merleau-Ponty agrees cogent one? Why, for example, does pluralism with Eugen Fink's formulation of the reduc with respect not only to content but to "modes of tion: when Fink "spoke of 'wonder' in the face organization of experience" not entail a performa of the world. Reflection does not withdraw tively self-contradictory relativization of phenom from the world towards the unity of conscious enology's own cognitive (and indeed normative) ness as the world's basis; it steps back to watch claims? And what (rational?) resources does phi the forms of transcendence fly up like sparks losophy bring to the creative cultural dialogue? Do from a fire; it slackens the intentional threads these allow it to clarify-and eventually justify which attach us to the world and thus bring its own genesis and functioning? (Crowell 43) them to our notice" (PhP xiii). We should first live the world, or first experience the world via lived-through perception, then pause and re We should respond here with Merleau-Ponty's flect, in order to become more fully aware of appeal to what we have seen him refer to above what we are experiencing. The perceptions, as a lateral universal. Different people in dif and perceptual "interpretations," that provide ferent cultures during different time periods are so many ways of perceptually opening the greatest clarity and the greatest ease of ad upon a common world, are so many ways of aptation to the world and each other are the bodily being-in-the-world. Our human bodies perceptions that we should accept. Since no open upon, live, and act within the world in perception is complete, since all perceptions similar ways. This similarity is not rational in are perspectival, no perception is absolutely the sense that each human individual falls ex certain. Some perceptions are clarifying and actly within or under an essential class con adaptive, yet all perceptions may be corrected cept. The similarity, rather, is lived-through, or adjusted by future perceptual and adaptive open, and ambiguous, with a multitude of dif experience. Some are better than others, but, ferences. Yet there are overlapping experi again, none is certain-with the only percep ences, family resemblances, common needs, tual certainty being the open ended horizon of and similar (not identical) ways of bodily be the world within which all perceptions occur, ing-in-the-world. It is these similar ways of or even those that are wrong. Thus, the ganizing the world and organizing our world phenomenological reduction is self-justifying, together that become the basis for shared even if not certain, because the questioning of rational systems. (More on this below.) experience-and the more accurate and Finally, a number of more specific ques adaptive answers that are implied by this tions and comments raised and offered by questioning, which is more thoroughly PHILOSOPHY TODAY 290 observed in the reduction-comes from counter with the world. Conceptual systems experience itself. are not outside of experience but drawn from 2) Crowell asks, "if its commitment to intu it. Yes, they fold back on the perceptual to help itive givenness bestows no epistemological organize it, but they are also measured by it privilege, in what sense is phenomenology since they are originally drawn from it. Fol more justified than any other philosophy? lowing Levinas, Crowell will offer another an Does the phenomenological reduction really swer: in the ethical recognition of the other. constitute a necessary starting point?" Yet, we must reply, the recognition of the other (Crowell 46). First, we must acknowledge per occurs only by way of perception, i.e., senti ceptual intuition. We can't eliminate it. It does ment for the other only occurs by way of sen n't provide an absolute foundation, but if we tience. Crowell does admit that the engaged, eliminate it, we have nothing, since more ab practical rationality of the sort of revised phe stract conceptual intuition, if we appeal to it, is nomenology that he has considered above (that intimately tied to it and is a sublimation of it. Waldenfels provides, for example) does seem Second, even though we must start with it, we to "maintain an attitude of critical questioning must continually check it against other experi toward all putatively ultimate grounds while ences and the experiences lived-through by nevertheless availing himself of the intellec others, and, again, this process will never be tual resources of phenomenology" (Crowell complete. Thus, yes, perceptual intuitions, 48).Yet he immediately questions whether this crossed-checked by me and others, do provide solution is satisfactory. He does agree with the an epistemological, philosophical staring "new" phenomenological approach which point, one that should continually be crossed claims that "personhood ... does rest upon pre checked but that can't be eliminated without personal structures of the embodied ego" and eliminating human experience. Moreover, it that "the person is defined in terms of a re can't be eliminated without eliminating the sponse to a demand of practical reason." More possibility of human knowledge, since nothing over, he continues, if this is so, if we are de else can replace it from the outside, since these fined in terms of our response to the demands attempts end up being either arbitrary, or of others, "then the demand itself must reach circular, or an infinite regress. the pre-personal ego-and this is just the Ges 3) Crowell proceeds to offer the following talt switch required by Levinas" (Crowell 49). criticism of the phenomenological reduction Furthermore, he adds, "the problem of ground by pointing out that "a crucial element of justi ing 'leads to the Other' in the sense that the ori fication does indeed seem to be missing." gin of intersubjective personhood lies in the Thus, he continues, "the ground of the demand ethical experience of a demand that 'calls my that I take responsibility for truth by subordi freedom into question.' I demand justification nating myself to the reduction must be sought of myself as a person only because it has al elsewhere" (Crowell 47). Yet, we may ask (as ready been demanded of me, as ego or 'free we have already done above), from where dom,' by the Other" (Crowell 49). And finally, else? If the questioning of experience doesn't he argues here that "Levinas suggests that the come from experience itself, from the intu origin of intersubjectivity be traced to an ethi itiveness of perceptual experience, where else cal modality of experience, viz., conscience, would it come from? One traditional answer 'the shame that freedom feels for itself.' Be has been from conceptual intuition and logic, cause 'philosophy consists in knowing criti but this answer is no longer widely accepted.23 cally ... it begins with conscience"' (Crowell Moreover, we have seen that Merleau-Ponty 49). We must reply that, yes, Merleau-Ponty, (as well as John Dewey and others) have plau like the "new" phenomenologists character sibly argued that logical systems are abstrac ized by Crowell, does recognize that the other tions from our lived-through perceptual en- is given in embodied, pre-reflective experi- MERLEAU-PONTY AND TRANSCENDENTAL PHil...OSOPHY 291 ence. Yet, the other cannot be an absolute development. In doing so, we see that the sense other-as the other is for Levinas. Or rather, to of self, other, and morality develop together say this more accurately, for Merleau-Ponty and they tend to develop over time. The child the recognition of the other requires both gradually learns how to negotiate the world sameness and difference, not just difference. and others, with a sense of morality, at first as We need to connect self and other, sense and sociated with blind obedience to authority up sentiment, perception and ethics, not separate to the grasping of a universal principle of jus them, as Levinas and Crowell attempt to do. tice. We see, then, if we take Piaget and Moreover, we must respond to the claim re Kohlberg seriously, that the sense of morality garding the origin of intersubjectivity in the develops along with the child's cognitive abil ethical recognition of the other with the coun ity, thus confirming Merleau-Ponty's point ter claim no, it begins with the whole person's above about aspects of human experience de attempt to adapt to the world and others. As we veloping together. Thus, within the context of have witnessed above, thought (epistemology) develops as a relationship with oneself, the what Crowell and others are referring to here world, and others, and these three relation as practical reason, our moral sense is not sepa ships develop simultaneously. As Crowell and rate from what we should broadly characterize Levinas express it here, ethics trumps episte as our intersubjective epistemological aware mology, the ethical recognition of the other oc ness and development. Finally, Crowell con curs prior to epistemology and helps bring it cludes that "transcendental philosophy is a about. Contrarily, we have seen that for philosophy of evidence not because there are Merleau-Ponty knowing the world and adapt epistemological ultimates, but because it ing to it with others occurs contemporane arises from an [ethical] obligation to constitute ously, that is to say, here the epistemological a world that can be shared with others" and, and recognition of the other are co-present, moreover, that "transcendental philosophy is since I try to grasp the world with others and possible precisely because it is necessary" this implies that I recognize them. But this rec (Crowell 50). We have witnessed above that ognition isn't the offering of the "gift" of my Merleau-Ponty has argued otherwise: the rela world to them (See Crowell 50). I recognize tionships between oneself, the other, and the others as we open upon the world together. I world tend to develop together, and the neces don't recognize the other, and then constitute sary must follow the actual and is a sublima an intersubjective world. This doesn't describe tion of it. The recognition of the other is con the world and our experience of it as we ordi tingent part of experience. My attempt to narily live it together. Rather, I recognize the other as being in a world that we appear in to justify my experience to the other is based gether. Yes, I can individuate from this shared upon the contingent fact that we must act in the world, and I will never literally live the indi world together. For me to be able to communi vidual thoughts of another. Yet our experi cate with the other, we must have a common ences can overlap, since our perceptions open world upon which our experience opens we upon a common world. Thus, when I "reason" open. This common world, not some transcen with the other there is something common to dental condition, is the basis of a shared discuss, to reason about, our commonly given language. The "transcendental" for Merleau perceptual world. Ponty must be based upon and drawn from our Finally, we must again consider Piaget and actual experience. Kohlberg and the child's cognitive and moral
PHILOSOPHY TODAY 292 NOTES
1. Steven Galt Crowell, ''The Project of Ultimate of Perr:eption, 220-21, where Merleau-Ponty states Grounding and the Appeal to lntersubjectivity in Re the following. "Kant has already shown that the a cent Transcendental Philosophy," International priori is not knowable in advance of experience, that Journal of Philosophical Studies 1 (1999): 31-54. is, outside of facticity.... Insofar as the a priori in his 2. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perr:ep philosophy retains the character of what must neces tion, trans. Colin Smith with corrections by Forrest sarily be, as opposed to what in fact exists and is de Williams (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, terminate in human terms, this is only to the extent 1962), 211. Originally published as Phenomen the he has not followed out his program, which was ologie
PHILOSOPHY TODAY 294