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But why phenomenology
in a class concerning time, and causality? When we speak
of time-space constructions, they come to us as culturally sedimented
structures, constructs which the architect by nature cannot simply
accept as given. "Here I shall argue that at the core of phenomenology,
traditionally interpreted, lies hidden a distinctly postmodern form
of thought which is simultaneously deconstructive and non-foundationalist,
yet retaining the sense of structure and multistability which also
makes of it a matter of possible concern for the discipline for architecture
(Don Idhe, Pratt Journal Number 2)." Edmund Husserl, founder
of classical phenomenology, outlines two distinct paths, one of the
"fantasy trajectory" which is composed of the transcendental
ego, and the other "material" trajectory as seen in the
work of Martin Heidegger and Maurice-Merleau Ponty which is existential
and hermeneutic. The critical point is that these trajectories propose
the idea of creative variation (theory of imaginative variation) in
figure-ground structures that forces the phenomenologist to study
the object and its pre-reflexive apprehension in order to get to the
"thing itself." What is striking about the phenomenological
discourse, is that it forces an (re)examination of experiential phenomena
in the world through the experience itself of such phenomena; a critical
issue for creators of the built world.
As most architects are
well familiar with the Heideggerian treatment of the earth and "place,"
it seems appropriate to concentrate, for a seminar dealing with spatial-temporal
and causal perceptions, upon the work of Merleau-Ponty who deals primarily
with bodily perceptions. It is important to remember that Ponty is
rejecting the philosophies of both intellectualism (mind-sense construction)
and empiricism (body-sense reception) by proposing an inter-subjective,
inter-monadal, and inter-sensory perception of the world-body.
the
I discourse
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
and Jean Paul Sartre
Maurice Merleau-Ponty and
Jean Paul Sartre were existential phenomenologists who come out or
Husserlean and Heideggerian thought which attempts to sever the duality
syndrome imposed on Western thinking after Rene Descartes (possibly
known even to the ancients as purported by Karl R. Popper in The Self
and its Brain, p. 151). I shall utilize the "I discourse"
as a means to explicate their dialogue for it points directly to the
core of their respective philosophies, and as we shall see, it was
their discussions with the "Other" that they were able to
develop the "I."
Maurice Merleau-Ponty:
Relevant Biographical Data
Born in Paris, 1908, he
was a key figure in a moment of French thinking incomparably fertile
and volatile. He graduated from the Ecole Normale Superieure where
he first encountered the man who was to annoy and inspire most of
his life, his Other, Jean Paul Sartre. Levi-Strauss, Jean Paul Sartre,
Simone di Beauvoir, and
Merleau-Ponty were all educated in the academic atmosphere of Paris,
described in Levi's words, "on the philosophical level all he
had to offer was a mixture of Bergsonianism and Neo-Kantianism. He
expounded his dry dogmatic views with great fervor and gesticulated
passionately throughout his lessons. I have never known so much naive
conviction allied to greater intellectual poverty."
While teaching
at various universities in Paris during the 30's, he came in continued
contact with Claude Levi-Strauss, Simone do Beauvoir, Raymond Aron,
Georges Bataille, Raymond Queneua, Jacques Lacan, Eric Weill, and
Andre Breton, and of course, Jean Paul Sartre. These were some of
the contemporary thinkers making up the atmosphere of Paris. The career
of Ponty consisted in publishing various articles and books with Sartre,
in spite of Sartre, and in dedication to Sartre; thus was their relationship
as two thinkers deeply interested in the work of Edmund Husserl and
Martin Heidegger but in constant conflict and absolute opposites.
Reflecting later, Sartre remarked, "Suddenly his tongue loosened.
And so did mine. We launched into a long and futile explanation which
bounced from one subject to another and from one discussion to another.
Is there a spontaneity of the masses? Can groups find their cohesion
from within? Ambiguous questions which at times took us back to politics...
and at other times to sociology, to existence itself, which means,
to philosophy, to our 'style of life', to our 'anchorage' and to ourselves
(Ibid., p.204).
"During
the fifties, Saussurian linguistics and the structural anthropology
of Levi-Strauss were his allies. It is as if these allies in the
resistance to Sartrian activism transformed themselves after Merleau-Ponty's
death in 1961, into opponents of phenomenology in general, forming
heteroclite camp which was christened 'structuralism'."
-Vincent Descombes
Ponty, as primarily
Husserlian in his early work, becoming more Heideggerian later, was
primarily interested in the return to the 'things themselves', the
'origin of truth', and the world of perception at a time when, "in
the 1960's, the most influential thinkers were highly suspicious of
the entire vocabulary which spoke of origins, of returns, of truth.
Where Merleau-Ponty sought 'foundations' and 'grounds', they found
only 'ruptures' and 'displacements.' And thus he came to suffer the
cruelest of fates which can befall a French thinker: he became unfashionable
(Schmidt, pp.2-5)."
The
Other is the I Discourse
In Humanism
and Terror, Hegel wrote that consciousness is, "essentially
a struggle -the struggle of the master and slave, the struggle
between classes- and this is a necessity of the human condition;
because of the fundamental paradox that man is an indivisible
consciousness no one is able to affirm himself except by reducing
the other to objects."
The dialogue between these
two great figures is one in which both developed a philosophical position
in terms of the Other. Thus, each formulated an understanding of "I
am" in terms of a dialectically polar position concerning the
other. Merleau-Ponty's book, Adventures of the Dialectic, is a sharp
criticism of comments made by Sartre concerning the proletariat and
communism in The Communists and Peace:
"Each
sees the other come to him as anyone at all, that is, as himself.
To the extent that massification engenders both isolationism and
interchangeability, it gives rise to imitation as a mechanical
relationship between molecules; and imitation is neither a tendency
nor a psychic characteristic: it is necessary result of certain
social situations."
This statement
was particularly offensive to Merleau-Ponty and eventually led to
break with Sartre. Although on the basis of a political debate, the
roots go deep into their respective philosophies as outlined in Phenomenology
of Perception (Ponty) and Being and Nothingness (Sartre).
Husserlean
Other
For Husserl, the
world as it is perceived through the consciousness is inter-monadic.
The Other makes up a part of its permanent unity and complexity. No
matter what I may be thinking (reflecting) upon, a desk, the sun,
and so on, the Other is always a layer of the constituted meaning
of that object, always a part of that object because it is through
the confirmation of the Other that I may establish the object's objectivity.
Through the phenomenological reduction, the Other becomes an condition
governing the very constitution of the self. My empirical self cannot
exist without the existence of the Other, thus, should I doubt the
concrete existence of my friend, I must doubt the existence of my
self. It is not only through the appearances of others that the existence
of the Other is revealed to me, but also on the desk, the tree, and
so on, that the Other is revealed.
Yet, since the
empirical ego of the Other is just as suspect as our own, it is the
transcendental subjects that he strives to make the link between the
Other and I. The Other is never the empirical person we perceive but
the transcendental subject to which this person refers. Hence, there
is a distinction of myself and Other, not through exteriority as supported
by realists, but through the fact that each of us exists in inferiority.
Consequently, the concrete existence of the other as presented empirically
is an absence. The Other is the object of empty intentions (as we
cannot know the transcendental subject), the Other on principle refuses
himself and flees. The only reality of the Other for me is the intention
I direct toward the Other on the basis of the concrete reality presented
to me.
Sartre’s
Other
For Sartre, the
other is that person which is not me, therefore having a negating
characteristic. He is a person immersed in the being of life. "Similarly,
it is thus that I appear to the Other: as a concrete, sensible, immediate
existence." This is the manner in which Sartre subverts the traditional
fall into solipsism. The Other is not just a part of my world, but
is another locus around which the world can be organized. With the
entry of another into my perceptual field,
"suddenly
an object has appeared which has stolen the world from me. Everything
is in place, everything still exists for me; but everything is
traversed by an invisible flight and fixed in the direction of
a new object (Schmidt, p.71, B&N, p.255)."
The nature of
the relationship with the Other is thus dependent on the Hegelian
master and slave; the experience of conflict with the Other formulates
the ontological structure of our consciousness of others. This is
based on the battle of objectifying gazes, in which I objectify the
other with my look and reciprocally me with his. "'The best example
of the "we" to be furnished us by the spectator at a theatrical
performance' who is non-thetically aware of 'being a co-spectator
of the spectacle' (Langer, p. 102)." "it is useless for
human-reality to seek to get out of this dilemma: one must either
transcend the Other or allow oneself to be transcended by him. The
essence of the relations between consciousness' is not the Mitsein;
it is conflict (B&N, pp.539-59)."
The example of
shame in Being and Nothingness clearly describes a pre-reflexive awareness
of myself as myself. This phenomena always occurs in the presence
of the Other and is a "non-positional consciousness," one
in which consciousness is "conscious (of) itself as shame".
It is also intentional in the sense that I am always shameful of something
"I have just made an awkward or vulgar gesture. This gesture
clings to me; I neither judge or blame it. I simply live it. I realize
it in the mode for-itself. But now I raise my head. Somebody was there
and has seen me. It is certain that my shame is not reflexive, for
the presence of another in my consciousness, even as a catalyst, is
incompatible with the reflexive attitude; in the field of my reflection
I can never meet with anything but the consciousness which is mine.
But the Other is the indispensable mediator between myself and me.
I am ashamed of myself as I appear to the Other. I am suddenly placed
in the position of "passing judgment on myself as an object"
because it this is the realization of how the Other perceives me,
as an object. "Moreover the very notion of vulgarity implies
an inter-monadal relation. Nobody can be vulgar all alone (pp.221-222)!"
Thus, I may know myself by way of the Other, and in this case, only
by way of the Other.
"The Other,
on the contrary, is presented in a certain sense as the radical negation
of my experience, since he is the one for whom I am not subject but
object. Therefore, as the subject of knowledge I strive to determine
as object the subject who denies my character as subject and who himself
determines me as object (p.228)." It is through this struggle
that I strive to assert my Being over that of the Other. This action
would be impossible were the notion of "I am" not already
primordially constituted in my consciousness. Through this struggle,
I am actively pushing myself upon the world, not closing it up inside
my mind. "My body is co-existive with the world, spread across
all things, and at the same time it is condensed into this single
point which I am without being able to know it. The body is lived
and not known (Being and Nothingness, p.420,7). Consciousness is different
phenomena than the objects it perceives, even the perception of the
body. "I am no more intimately related to it than to other objects
I confront.'
Through the struggle,
he shows that his consciousness cannot be shut up in its own world
but rather "each individual world opens onto, 'a background world
that exceeds all its perspectives.' It is a 'partial being', connected
to 'the whole of Being' (Schmidt, p.89)." But, ultimately unknown.
Merleau-Ponty’s
Other
To the contrary, Ponty
through his description of the theory of the body as a theory of perception
implicitly links the actions of the mind to the body as inter-monadal.
That while two separate entities, there is a middle ground, an interactive
dialectic that is fundamentally codependent and hence, one may not
separate or isolate any one aspect of the person. We perceive the
world and experience the world, before any intellectualization, as
being in the world. And in this world, we are not a precarious alliance
of matter and mind, but rather a third kind of being. Through the
complex dialogue of the two, body-mind, me-other, and so on, a third
being exists. By extension, there is a primordial flow of existence
in which something becomes significant to the extent that it attracts
our body in a movement towards it, and our body comes into existence
as a body in this very movement, so that the significance of the thing
and that of the body come into existence together and imply one another.
(Langer, p.50) There can only be objects for us because it is fundamentally
impossible to perceive ourselves perceiving; the body cannot be an
object for our consciousness
(in contrast to Sartre). The body's perspective constitutes our bond
with the world, our fixed opening onto it, rather than one among many
perspectives seen from some ideal standpoint outside the world. In
short, were it not for the permanence and perspectivity of our body,
the relative permanence and the perspectivity of objects would be
utterly inconceivable (36-7). Thus, I experience myself only to the
extent that I experience other things or others. This bodily movement
through space then is the very condition for the coming into being
(the "I") and the constituting of a meaningful world.
This divergence
between the perceived and perceiver, touched and touching, and so
on are not in constant opposition and conflict, but rather they show
that something other than the body is necessary for a connection to
be made, for "there is not identity, nor non-identity, there
is inside and outside turning around one another." There is this
"slipping in and out" of the two that dialectically create
the "I". This "I" is the
incarnate subject.
Ponty draws greatly upon
Paul Valery's statement:
"Once
gazes interlock, there are no longer quite two persons and it's
hard for either to remain alone. This exchange...effects... a
transposition, a metathesis, a chiasm of two 'destinies', two
points of view. You take my appearance, my image, and I take yours.
You are not I, since you see me and I don't see myself. What is
missing for me is this 'I' whom you can see. And what you miss
is the 'you' I can see.
Through Ponty's
phenomenology, Sartre lacks a third term in which two body-subjects
communicate thus hindering him from establishing the bodily intentionality
which links my experience dialectically with that of the other body-subject.
My placement in the world is not an alienating invasion of the human
world, but rather I enjoy an organic relationship with an interacting
natural and human world. Since my view of the world is perspectival
(I have no ability to see the entirety of the world), there is room
for other "incarnate subjectivities" in the world which
complement my own. "Their body expresses their intentions and
I perceive those intentions with my own; insofar as my body takes
up the other's intentions, there is an internal relationship between
our bodies Just as in the perception of objects our perspectives 'slip
into' each other and are brought together in the thing, so my perspective
and that of other people 'slip into' each other and are brought together
in a shared social world (Langer, 104-5).
Merleau-Ponty
states of Sartre as being "a good Cartesian" who in some
places seems to get beyond the dualism, but ultimately does not accept
the third term which is so key to understanding the relationship of
"I" and of "Other". In writing of Sartre in, Adventures
of the Dialectic, "there
is a plurality of subjects but no intersubjectivity... the apparent
paradox of his work is that he became famous by describing a middle
ground between consciousness and things and that nonetheless his thought
is in revolt against the middle ground and finds there only an incentive
to transcend it" The difference between Sartre and Ponty is best
expressed in the significance of the third term which is most clearly
manifest in Ponty's discussion of the use of language:
"In the
experience of dialogue, there is a constituted between the other
and myself a common ground; my thought and his are interwoven
into a single fabric...I am not active only when I am speaking;
rather, I precede my thought in the listener. I am not passive
while I am listening; rather, I speak according to...what the
other is saying. Speaking is not just my own initiative, listening
is not submitting to the initiative of the other, because as speaking
subjects we are continuing, we are resuming a common effort more
ancient than we, upon which is
saying. Speaking is not just my own initiative, listening is not
submitting to the initiative of the other, because as speaking
subjects we are continuing, we are resuming a common effort more
ancient than we, upon which we are grafted to one another and
which is the manifestation, the growth, of truth. Thus the instituted
subject exists between others and myself, between me and myself,
like a hinge, the consequence and guarantee of our belonging to
a common world (CAL,p.354, PP, p.31150, TFL, p.40)."
Selected Bibliography
Eccles, John
C. and Popper, Karl R. The Self and its Brain. An
Argument for Interactionism. Routledge Publishers, London
and New York, 1995.
Husserl, Edmund.
The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology.
Edited by David Carr, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 1970.
Langer, Monika
L. Merleau-Ponty 's Phenomenology of
Perception. A Guide and Commentary.
The Florida State University Press, Tallahassee, 1989.
Merleau-Ponty,
Maurice. Phenomenology of
Perception.
Translated by Colin Smith, Routledge & Kegan Paul Publishers,
New York, 1962.
Natanson, Maurice.
Edmund Husserl. Philosopher of
Infinite Tasks. Northwestern
University Press, 1973.
Sartre, Jean
Paul. Being and Nothingness. Translated
by Hazel E. Barnes, University of Colorado, Philosophical Library
Inc., 1956.
Schmidt, James.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Between Phenomenology and Structuralism.
St. Martin's Press, New York, 1985.
A
dialogue between Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Jean Paul Sartre
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