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.