Merleau-Ponty on Causality by Douglas Low (The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/ DOI 10.1007/s10746-015-9358-0) Abstract Merleau-Ponty on Causality attempts to reveal Merleau-Ponty s treatment of causality with respect to the physical, the vital, and the human. The philosophy of causality of both Hume and Mill will be briefly addressed and challenged. Special attention will be paid to Merleau-Ponty s treatment of causality with respect to human behavior. This paper will attempt to bring Merleau-Ponty s philosophy to bear on a number of issues related to causality. First, Hume s well known claim that there is no rational justification for cause and effect relations, either rationalist (logical) or empiricist (inductive), will be briefly investigated and challenged with Merleau-Ponty s offer of an alternative view. Secondly, the paper will counter Mill s method of inductive inference (which is primarily induction by enumeration) with Merleau-Ponty s claim that scientific propositions, certainly those that involve inductive generalizations about cause and effect relations, must be framed by hypotheses. And third, the paper will address causality, as well as the issue of freedom vs. determinism, in psychology and human history, again with Merleau-Ponty s philosophy offered as providing valuable alternative insights. 1 Preliminary Remarks We should begin with a widely accepted general definition of causality. The general definition of cause can be stated as follows: something that brings something else about or makes something else happen or change. And the general definition of effect: something that comes about or occurs or happens or changes because of something else. In addition, in this context the notion of force is typically understood as the strength with which the cause influences the effect. We should also begin with a brief consideration of the structural levels of being that Merleau-Ponty reveals in his early book The Structure of Behavior (SB), the physical, vital and human, since these levels determine the kind of specific cause and effect relations that occur within them (SB 129-184). 1 I have discussed some of what is presented here in a number of other published works dealing with Merleau-Ponty s philosophy, although all of my comments here relating directly to Merleau-Ponty s insights concerning causality are new. 1
Physical structure is defined as a set of physical forces in equilibrium. Here we find physical things in mechanical relations with one another, moving to reduce tension in order to maintain structural balance. Merleau-Ponty cites the soap bubble and planetary orbits as examples, with the air inside the bubble in balance with external atmospheric pressure, and the planets in a balance of gravitational forces with the sun. These relationships can be understood using the typical tools of the natural sciences: hypothesis construction, the articulation of variables and their relationships, including causal relationships, with the assistance of mathematical tools and algorithms (SB 130-132). Here Merleau- Ponty accepts the general characterization of cause as something that makes something else happen or occur, yet instead of an ontology of discrete units in linear causal sequence, he stresses an ontology of structures, structures whose parts mutually and simultaneously influence one another. These structures must be regarded as partial wholes in relationships with one another, and, when considering causal influences, we should generally adopt the principle that, even though everything is ultimately connected to everything else, influence increases with spatial/temporal proximity and decreases with spatial/temporal distance (SB 139-140). Merleau-Ponty does ask here if physical structures should be treated as independent, as in-themselves, and answers that they must be treated as perceived forms. His use of phenomenology s fundierung relationship in his seminal work Phenomenology of Perception (PhP) is helpful here, for, in his eyes, physical structures in-themselves must be regarded as the basis for the perceived forms, yet an act of perception is also needed to fully grasp the meaning of the structure and the relationship between the parts that compose it (PhP 127, 394). The physical structures suggest a certain perceptual orientation, but the perceptual orientation folds back upon the perceived and helps articulate its structure with greater clarity. Different perceptual orientations always remain possible, yet some are more clarifying than others. Moving from physical to vital structure, Merleau-Ponty states that we cannot maintain that certain centers of indetermination appear in the universe of physical causality in order to account for the appearance of vital structures. Rather it is better to say that, since we clearly perceive that qualitatively different types of structures appear in the perceived world, we must attempt to describe them as clearly as 2
possible. Merleau-Ponty s attempt to do so reveals that the parts of the world to which [living or vital organisms] react are delimited for them by an internal norm, a norm that is simply an observation of a preferred attitude, statistically more frequent, which gives an observation of unity to behavior (SB 159). These norms are not the result of simply blind mechanical forces, as with the physical structures observed above, but often reveal or express a difference in attitude on the part of the reacting organism. Flexion movements, for example, are best understood by recognizing the preparedness, attention or aggressiveness of the responding organism and not by simply appealing to physical, physiological or anatomical structures (SB 149). The notion of causality as applied to living beings must thus account for relations that involve species norms and living attitudes. Proceeding to human structure, Merleau-Ponty argues that it must be qualitatively distinguished from both physical and vital structures. Even though we are clearly subject to the influences of the mechanical, causal forces of nature, and to the biological norms of our species, human behavior is certainly not simply and blindly subjected to these forces. Human beings interpret and interact with these forces with at least a degree of freedom. Also, when considering animal behavior, under the headings of what Merleau-Ponty calls syncretic and amovable forms, behavior can be seen to be either strictly determined (syncretic) or loosely conditioned (amovable) by the biological structure of the species. Yet even in the latter case, the perceptions experienced by these animal groups is largely, if not completely, determined by the needs of each respective species. And while it is certainly true that human perception is influenced by human need, the human species, more than any other, is capable of escaping its strictly biological demands, in order to interpret and respond to the environment in a variety of ways. What especially characterizes human behavior, then, because of the ability to form, compare, and understand multiple perspectives, with at least a degree of self-awareness, and thus to form and grasp general meanings, is its internal unity. As human beings we are able to aim meaningfully at goals with our entire (more or less integrated) personality, and to do so in ways that cannot be understood merely as a collection of separate biological responses, or, for that matter, merely as a collection of mechanical responses to isolated causes. Yet, of course, the human ability to aim meaningful at goals certainly does 3
not mean that human behavior can be understood merely as the internal relationships of abstract conceptual ideas, either logical or merely linguistic. Human beings are primarily a relationship to the world, and it is in this relationship that we discover the birth of meaning. Merleau-Ponty concludes his discussion here of nature, life and humanity with the following claim. Instead of three inseparable terms bound together in the living unity of an experience which a pure description reveals, because of the inappropriately exclusive ontological categories of Western philosophy and science, one finds oneself in the presence of three orders of events which are external to each other: the events of nature, the organic events and those of thought (SB 190) These regions do overlap and intertwine, and our best chance of grasping this intertwining comes as we approach the pure descriptions of phenomenology, i.e., the most accurate descriptions that we can achieve of our embodied, lived-through perceptual encounter with the world. We will address this description below. For now we should say that even though these regions do overlap they nevertheless display dominant traits, that of quantity, order, and meaning, corresponding respectively to nature, life, and humanity. When considering causality, this means that we should not reduce all causality to merely physical cause and effect relations but that we should keep the other dominant traits in mind as well (SB 132-133). We will return to Merleau-Ponty s philosophy momentarily, after a brief consideration of Hume s treatment of cause and effect relations. Hume Hume adheres to the so-called representational theory of consciousness, the view that consciousness is in contact only with its own sensations and ideas. Consciousness is aware of what appears to it and is not directly in contact with the external world. Hume attempts to make sense of the stable structures of experience by appealing to three laws of the association of sense impressions: resemblance, contiguity, and cause and effect. According to Hume the idea of cause and effect relationships has its source in three others: the relationship of contiguity (or direct contact in space), the relationship of temporal priority (the cause must occur prior to the effect), and the relationship of necessary connection. The first two relationships have their source in sense impressions, but the third, Hume argues, does not. There is no impression of a necessary connection between any cause and effect 4
relationship and, Hume admits, its only source must be in the appearance of their constant conjunction. We are thus lead to the idea of the connection between a particular cause and a particular effect because we repeatedly observe that a particular impression is always accompanied by another impression that is contiguous in space and prior in time. Hume thus claims that we arrive at the idea of the necessary connection between a particular cause and effect only because of a habit of the mind---which falls short, he insists, of rational justification. Hume believed that there are two kinds of knowledge claims, claims concerning matters of fact and claims regarding relations of ideas. Judgments about matters of fact are judgments about sense impressions and their contingent relations to each other, and judgments about relations of ideas just that, judgments about the relations of ideas of logic and mathematics. These latter judgments are deemed necessary but also simply formal and thus do not apply to matters of fact. Given this framework, Hume will of course find no impression of a necessary connection between any cause and effect. He is able to find an impression of spatial contiguity and temporal priority but none of necessary connection. This cannot be a surprise because necessity is a property of the relations of ideas, and this appears to be part of what Hume is arguing. He is arguing against the identification of matters of fact with formal relations. Or, to restate, one way that we may read this is that Hume disagrees that matter of fact cause and effect relations are simply deduced from (perhaps eternal) laws of nature understood as formal, logical relations. Yet Hume also denies the possibility that necessary cause and effect relations can be justified with the more empirical claim that, since the world is stable, cause and effect relationships remain the same over time. According to Hume the claim that the world is stable cannot be justified by experience, by means of inductive generalizations. After all, the claim that the future will be like the past because in the past this has been so is an unjustified circular argument. This of course undermines all scientific claims about cause and effect relationships, since they are expected to hold over time (Hume 1988: 21, 26-27, 36-37, 43, 143; Low 2013: 194-197). Unlike Hume, Merleau-Ponty does not accept the portrayal of consciousness as only representational consciousness, as a consciousness that has access only to its own impressions. Rather, consciousness must be understood as a relation to the world; it is ekstasis, is a throwness out of itself 5
toward the world. It is thrown out of itself toward the world and its pre-existent spatial/temporal dimension. Thus the perceiver exists in time/space as a worldly dimension that opens out toward the spatial and temporal horizon. Here the moments of time cannot be regarded as discrete or separate units but as overlapping and flowing into one another. The moments of experience overlap one another because they are already connected as a dimension of a stable world, a world that is given in experience itself. Moreover, if this is true, we now have a basis for inductive inferences, including those about cause and effect relationships. We know that the future will be like the past because these moments of time, along with the present, overlap and thus to a certain extent, at least, occur together and not as isolated units that are independent of one another. The world itself expresses a unity or cohesion over or through time. The perceiver is needed to more fully articulate this unity but the basis for it is given in the world itself. We should also point out here that a similar argument can be made against postmodernism, which generally claims that there is nothing outside of our interpretive linguistic systems, or at least nothing that can be understood apart from our interpretive linguistic systems (Rosenau 1992: 23, 33, 112). For Merleau-Ponty, while it is true that the unity of the world is articulated through human experience, and is articulated more clearly, it is also true that the pre-existence of the world is given in this experience, and is given as itself holding together through time. The world may well motivate or suggest a certain interpretation, and this interpretation is needed to more clearly articulate the frequently ambiguous structures of the world, but, after all, there is something there to interpret: the stable world with its stable structures. Merleau-Ponty on Causality Philosophy of Nature In the detailed presentation of his lecture notes that came to be published as a book under the title of Nature (Na), Merleau-Ponty asks the following question: does the study of nature simply address the historical meanings associated with the word nature? True, many of these meanings have changed over time, yet, he suggests, this could well be because of the desire to better understand nature, and to understand it as it is before our cultural and linguistic representations of it. After all, he states, we must recognize a life in language which would be neither fortuitous nor a logical, immanent development...we are looking for the primordial, non-lexical 6
meaning, always intended by people who speak of nature Nature is the primordial that is, the nonconstructed, the non-instituted; hence the idea of an eternity of nature (the eternal return), of a solidity It is our soil not what is in front of us, facing us, but rather, that which carries us (Na 3-4; see also Low, 2013: 46-47) Clearly, then, for Merleau-Ponty nature is not just about linguistic expressions. True, his collection of lectures entitled Nature will attempt to trace the historical use of the word nature, but will do so in order to grasp more thoroughly what lies beneath it. We will not follow this attempt here, given the focus of our current topic, but will turn instead to the book s comments regarding causality. Physical causality Taking up the notion of causality in Nature, Merleau-Ponty reports that Descartes Modernist philosophy produced a supposedly definitive idea of cause and effect relations: that is to say, cause and effect relations were to be seen as definite, as unfolding in a linear chain according to precise rules, rules that follow the rigorous laws of nature. This view of causality subsequently led to two views of science, one dealing with cause and effect relations as they unfold in time, the other attempting to articulate the universal and eternal laws of nature, with the latter eventually doing away with the need for the former. Merleau-Ponty favorably notes that Brunschvicg (1922) responds to the latter by refusing to accept a science of eternal laws that are simply applied to specific events of a physical/mechanical nature. What both Merleau-Ponty and Brunschvicg here accept is a science that is directed to what is given before us as it unfolds in time. For both our science of nature is a science of the history of the earth (Na 29). Yet certain Modernists claimed that this sort of historical thinking shifts the emphasis away from reason and rational explanation and back toward chance and contingency. In a strictly rationally determined universe, these Modernists argued, chance is really only independent chains of cause and effect relations coming together to produce something that was originally not foreseen or predicted by observers of the eternal laws. Chance, thought of in this way, is really only an expression, for there really is no chance, only a lack of understanding (Na 30). Merleau-Ponty here again recalls Brunschvicg s work, arguing that his position is more integrated, for it claims that we cannot understand nature as a collection of laws of independent series of cause and effect relations (Na 30). Laws are not outside the events within 7
which they are manifested and, in fact, appear only in these events. As such they interact with other events and thus other laws and will be confirmed in experience only in these clusters and combinations. (See also SB 140-145) Brunschvicg is here claiming that these laws are confirmed by experimentation, and also that experimentation confirms the laws as abstract generalizations of our actual experiences. Yet, Merleau-Ponty critically notes, Brunschvicg does not abandon idealism, for even though we must remain attuned to contingency, it is only by appeal to laws that we can understand nature (Na 32). In fact, his idealism remains complete, since the only way that we can know events of either the past or the future is based on the ideas or thoughts constructed in the present (Na 33). For Merleau-Ponty, on the contrary, even though he privileges the present, since this is what we must do, since this is where and when experience primarily occurs, the present runs out toward the past, present, future, and elsewhere, and does so without district boundaries between them. Even though the present is featured, it must be seen as overlapping with the past, future and elsewhere. Human beings exist within a spatial/temporal field. We do not construct the spatial/temporal field. Also, Merleau-Ponty certainly believes in the value of abstraction and generalization. Even though our understanding of nature must begin with specific moments of lived-through perceptual experience, we surely cannot understand nature as simply an aggregate of isolated, specific events. We must look for patterns and lawful regularities in nature (including of course those involving cause and effect relationships) in order for us to understand it meaningfully and for us to be able to manipulate it with any degree of success. These laws are the patterns of stable but also changing events expressed as abstractions. Yet we must certainly not treat these patterns as an expression of something else, as an expression of reified, pre-existent laws or abstractions. Under the heading Classical and Modern Physics Merleau-Ponty considers the impact of quantum physics upon classical physics, with its discrete units in more or less fixed external relationships. (See Na 88-100) The classical view, which we have already witnessed above, especially this view through the eyes of Laplace, sees probability only as an expression of what is not yet know. If nature is conceived as a sort of empty spatial container within which each mechanical impact of separated units of nature can be more or less perfectly calculated, then all events can be predicted with certainty. Yet, since we cannot 8
predict both the position and velocity of atoms at the quantum level, since the very act of observation interferes with this process, giving rise to a number of possible results, then probability must be understood as a part of nature itself and can no longer be considered as merely the lack of knowledge to be supplied at a later date. Yet Merleau-Ponty is quick to point out that the abandonment of certainty with respect to our prediction regarding nature does not mean that we are doomed to declare of the universe that it is completely a chaos of indeterminacy. After all, probability is and should be an expression of that which comes between certainty and indeterminacy---and this in fact is the way nature behaves. (See also Low 2013: 51-54) We do not find in nature fixed essences or ironclad laws, just as we don t find complete chaos. We find patterns and typical structures. For the perceived world is a world where there is a discontinuity yet also where there is probability and generality (Merleau-Ponty 1970: 86) Nature, in fact, is that which makes there be, simply, and at a single stroke such a coherent structure of a being, which we then laboriously express in speaking of a space-time continuum...nature is that which establishes privileged states, the dominant traits...which we try to comprehend through the combination of concepts... (Merleau-Ponty 1970: 93) Mention should perhaps be made here of the treatment of causality as necessary and sufficient conditions. As Copi points out, the word cause is sometimes used in the sense of necessary condition and sometimes in the sense of sufficient condition. Moreover, a necessary condition is a circumstance in whose absence the event cannot occur (for example the presence of oxygen for fire), and sufficient conditions are a set of circumstances in whose presence the event must occur (for example oxygen, a fuel, and a source of ignition for fire). Each necessary condition must be included in what is thought to be the sufficient conditions. Given a reasonable knowledge of a type of event (of fire, for example), frequently what is sought in the normal state of practical affairs is the identification of the particular cause that triggered a specific event (the spark, for instance, that ignited fire in the warehouse) (Copi 1990: 377-379). In all likelihood, Merleau-Ponty would not reject any part of this framework. Yet within the context of his philosophy, we should surely qualify the concept of necessity as it is used here. We should not confuse the necessary conditions of nature with the necessary conditions of logic. The necessary 9
conditions of nature are based on the regular patterns that we observe in nature, but as natural patterns they are constantly being drawn into other patterns and may well change over time---even if this span of time is millennia. Here in Nature Merleau-Ponty also favorably mentions Whitehead s attempt to evaluate the classical concepts of time, space, causality and probability (Na 112). Nature should not be conceived as a collection of discrete units of time and space and matter, for in this case it is left to memory and the power of projection to mentally construct the past and future. Rather, we can make better sense of nature if we regard it as a process, as a continual unfolding, if we regard it as a temporal/spatial gestalt field, within which we exist, with time and space running out away from our present act of perception. Moreover, we must regard the objects of nature as processes as well. the electron does not exist in the sense of absolute Being, which is all or nothing: the electron does not reside in a punctual and objective spatiotemporality; it is an ingredient (this word also has the sense of making an ingression) in its whole vicinity, it is the hallway of certain trace, of certain roles observed by the observer. It is a transspatial and transtemporal being, but not any more separated from appearances. (Na 115; see also Low 2013: 54-58) We see here that an object, including the electron, must be regarded as embedded in an ensemble of spatial/temporal relations, and not as an absolute individual with unchanging properties or attributes, and we must also take the role of the perceiver into account. Moreover, to confirm Merleau-Ponty s agreement here with Whitehead, it is helpful to recall Merleau-Ponty s discussion in The Structure of Behavior of the patterns or laws of nature expressing themselves as spatial/temporal gestalt structures, that we should understand physical structures as an ensemble of forces that tend toward equilibrium, and that we should understand causal influence, at least in part, in proportion to the spatial/temporal proximity of the influencing events, with greater proximity bringing greater influence. Also, in The Structure of Behavior when speaking about the organic functions of the body (how they are connected, and how they influence once another) (SB 153), and in Adventures of the Dialectic (Merleau-Ponty 1973: 12-14) when speaking about the movement of history and the functions of a society (how they are connected, and how they influence one another), Merleau-Ponty mentions (as we have already seen above) the need to recognize the contributions of the perceiver to what is perceived and, in addition, the need to take-up a 10
perspective, or, we might say, to develop a hypothesis. The hypothesis may well be suggested by the data, but the intuitions of the observer, and these intuitions expressed in a hypothesis, are needed pull the data together and to articulate the data more clearly and precisely. Brief mention should be made here of John Losee s (1993) work on the history of the philosophy of science. He mentions in this work that there are two ways for scientists to develop a theory, one by way of inductive methods, the other by forming a hypothesis. When discussing the first step of the latter method, Losee mentions the focus that is necessary to divide a complex phenomenon into constituent parts to be studied. To account for the motion of bodies, for example, one must focus on such properties as force, mass, and velocity. The second step of this method, he continues, is to form a hypothesis about the relations between these variables---which in many cases is not evident using simple methods of induction. (Losee 1993: 121-123) From what we have seen above, and will continue to see immediately below, Merleau-Ponty sides with the latter method, and in the way that it has just been characterized, especially when attempting to understand human behavior. Let us now turn to this attempt. Causality and psychology We should begin the discussion of causality and psychology with a brief reference to a chapter in Phenomenology of Perception entitled The Sensation as a Unit of Experience. Here he addresses the tabula rasa idea that perception is the result of isolated units of sense data mechanically impacting upon the eyes, eventually forming a representation of the object in a state of human consciousness. Addressing experience itself, rather than this analytic construction of experience, Merleau-Ponty agrees with Gestalt psychology that the simplest perception is a figure against a background, offering the perception of a white dot on a white background as an example. The dot seems to have a circumference border, and seems to rest on the background of white that appears below it. This means that when we perceive, we perceive sensations that are oriented, that are already meaningful, and that appear in a world that supports them (PhP 4-5). Visual perception, then, cannot be understood as simply being caused by the impact of discrete sense data upon the retina but must be grasped as a process to which both the world and the aware perceiver make a contribution. For this conclusion, Merleau-Ponty owes a significant debt to Gestalt psychology. 11
Yet Merleau-Ponty remains critical of Gestalt psychology because it remains tied to the objectivist thought of empiricism. Gestalt psychology did so to avoid what it perceived to be the only other alternative then available, perception defined by the abstract thought of the rationalist. Merleau-Ponty seeks to take up and develop a third alternative, similar to American pragmatism, one that recognizes an interested perceiver, one that recognizes an engaged, embodied phenomenology, one that tries to describe our active, lived-through engagement with the world as clearly as possible. More specifically, he here attempts to focus on the notion of motive, rather than reason or cause, as it is introduced and used in phenomenology. Merleau-Ponty offers the example of perceiving a church steeple at some distance, across the valley floor. When a screen is introduced to block the intervening landscape, the distance to the church appears to shrink. This difference cannot be explained by using rationalist methods, for there is no strictly logical reason why the church should appear closer to the perceiver, and yet the difference cannot be explained by the empiricist either, for the relationship between the parts of the perceptual field are relationships of meaning and not the relationships of a mechanical causality (PhP 45-50). The author also points out that we can no longer understand even basic human reflex behavior as a simple behavioral response (as effect) to isolated stimuli (as the cause). Rather, reflexes must not be understood as waiting for the details of the perceived situation but as grasping a general configuration. The reflex does not arise from objective stimuli, but moves back towards them, and invests them with a meaning It causes them to exist as a situation This is true of animal behavior but it is especially true of human responses, since the human reflex, insofar as it opens itself to the meaning of a situation, and perception, insofar as it does first of all posit an object of knowledge and is an intention of our whole being, are modalities of a pre-objective view which we call being-in-the-world (PhP 79). Regarding the phenomenological notion of motive, Merleau-Ponty makes the following additional points. He points out that research has shown that we cannot account for either spatial perception or, more specifically, the perception of depth, by either the objective position of the retinal images or their apparent similarity to each other. First of all, as we have just seen, we must understand perception as a meaningful event, since the relationship between the parts of the perceptual field is a meaningful one and is thus not 12
amenable to a simple cause and effect analysis. This means that motive must be understood as an antecedent that acts only through its significance and that the relationship between the motiving and the motivated must thus be regarded as a reciprocal (PhP 259). Secondly, we must again understand perception within the context of our entire, aware, active being-in-the-world. The experience of depth, for example, is motivated by the body s active, meaningful hold on the world. As an object recedes from the actual grasp of my hand or from my visual grasp of my immediate perceptual field, it recedes in both distance and significance (PhP 261). Merleau-Ponty does not deny that the eye s retinal image plays a role in perception, but this image must not be regarded as the cause of a perception, and it must not be regarded so because it is integrated into the total functioning of the active and aware human organism. When discussing the maladies of patient Schnieder, Merleau-Ponty points out the difficulty of finding a single cause for his difficulties. Specific events encountered by the organism undergo a series of structurations which disassociate them from spatiotemporal context and orders them according to the original dimensions of organic and human activity --and this is precisely what is lacking in the patient (SB 73-74). Empiricism has difficulty explaining behavioral malfunctions because its focus is on specific events and not on these events as they integrated into the global functioning of the organism which is the norm in healthy behavior. And rationalism fails because the supposedly completely rational, logical consciousness cannot account for the ambiguity that is clearly present in much of human behavior and cannot account for the diminution of reason within it. According to the rationalists own standards, behavior is either rational or it isn t, with no middle ground allowed. With respect to rationalist explanations of behavior, it is perhaps appropriate here to mention Frederick Wertz s essay Merleau-Ponty and Cognitive Psychology of Perception (1986: 265-284). Wertz finds and documents certain common themes in the works of Ulrich Neisser (1967, 1976), J.J. Gibson (1979), and Merleau-Ponty (1963), themes that challenge the main thesis of cognitive psychology, especially as it relates to perception. All three argue against the claim that perception can be understood as beginning with isolated units of sense data that are then organized by abstract concepts or algorithms, on the model of the computer. Each argues that perception itself reveals meaningful patterns, patterns that 13
then suggest and can give rise to abstract concepts and formulas. Wertz also points to the perceiver s use of schemata that further help organize already patterned perceptions. These schemata are lived-through, pre-conceptual orientations that help bring a greater clarity to what is perceived. When they do so they tend to be confirmed, reinforced, and become the basis for the formation of abstract concepts and formulas. Concepts and formulas are thus suggested by and abstracted from the data, and, likewise, can only be corrected by experience in an ongoing process. They do not pre-exist this experience, as is claimed by the cognitive psychology model. With respect to empiricist explanations, it is appropriate to turn to Merleau-Ponty s Consciousness and to Acquisition of Language (CAL). Here he briefly mentions Mill s inductive method and again favorably reference Brunschvicg and his response to Mill. Here we see that Mill s method of induction is primarily induction by enumeration. His hope is that repeated observations of particular things or events will reveal similarities and correlations. Brunschvicg s criticism is that Mill s method is simply the noting of correlations and does not reveal cause and effect relationships, and for this a hypothesis is needed. In fact, an essential role of the hypothesis is to define the variables between which causal connection will be established (CAL 7). Brunschvicg further notes that induction gives us only the sum of numerical relations existing between different variables of the phenomenon being studied, and this doesn t genuinely verify the hypothesis. Since the same correlations can be enumerated under different hypothesis, simple induction doesn t really help us truly understand what is essential or common. The simple noting of correlations does not help us understand or clarify the actual facts and their relationship to one another. A hypothesis or theory is needed to clarify facts and in a way that goes beyond merely an account of the greatest number of facts. Merleau-Ponty states explicitly here that the role of the phenomenology method is thus to describe facts but also to interpret them. As he puts it, the criteria for this method will not be a multiplicity of facts which will serve as proofs for predefined hypothesis. The proof will be in the fidelity to the phenomena, i.e., in the precise hold which we will have of the material used and, to some extent, our proximity to pure description. (CAL 8) This, of course, doesn t eliminate 14
the possibility of multiple hypothesis, but it does mean that we should choose the hypothesis that provides the greatest clarity and understanding. Merleau-Ponty further mentions here, with respect to our attempt to understand animal and human behavior, that we must attempt to grasp the awareness experienced by the species, either animal or human, which requires moving beyond simple induction and the mere correlation of objective events. Merleau-Ponty briefly mentions Koehler s work on animal intelligence and how Koehler refuses to focus only on the correlation of objective and measurable events. In order to understand animal intelligence he insists that we must account for the qualitative differences that we can observe in animal behavior, some of which reveal themselves as abrupt and discontinuous, and some of which reveal themselves as melodic and continuous. The former can be understood as merely chance occurrences, while the latter must be grasped as being understood by the animal. Merleau-Ponty proceeds to mention that if he [Koehler] enters into the analysis of the intrinsic characteristics of the phenomenon, it is so that the life of the animal will not be reduced to the behavior which is under observation. We cannot make what the observed animal offers us into an abstraction---we cannot separate out our human attitudes (CAL 9). Moreover, both Koffka and Koehler say that this appeal to our experience of observed behavior is phenomenological. This method is new in that effective knowledge is not only measurable but qualitatively descriptive. Furthermore, even though Koehler s method introduces an anthropomorphism of sorts, since it seeks it grasp the experience of the animal as a variation of our human experience, this anthropomorphism, if we truly seek to understand animal intelligence, cannot be denied. (CAL 9) Moreover, Merleau-Ponty claims, this qualitative knowledge is not subjective; it is intersubjective. It describes that which is observable by all (CAL 10). Thus we should study facts not by using the method of simple induction by enumeration, not by observing things or events in isolations with the hope of discovering some general meaning (for how can the empiricist s claim that we only perceive particulars lead to the grasping of the general), but by developing a hypothesis based on an intuition of how these things or events are bound together. The hypothesis is thus confirmed by the meaning and clarity that it brings to these things and events and not 15
simply by the number of them that fall under its explanatory or logical umbrella. Moreover, when studying animal and human behavior, special care should be taken to clarify the lived-through awareness of the species under consideration. Thus we should attempt to develop the hypothesis that most clarifies a specific aspect of the behavior of a particular subject, that does so in great detail and with the greatest comprehension, and that clarifies it as it is lived-through by an animal or human subjects. A popular, high quality psychology textbook uses the following as an example of the construction of a hypothesis in the field of psychology (Bernstein 1994). Francine Shapiro recognized in her own experience that her back and forth eye movements helped her reduce the anxiety of a stressful day. She sought to test this as a hypothesis: back and forth eye movements, while thinking about an anxiety producing event, reduces the anxiety. (Bernstein 1994: 19) Here eye movement is treated as the independent variable of the hypothesis, while the reduction of anxiety is viewed as the dependent variable. To test his hypothesis, Shapiro conducted an experiment using a small sample of subjects who were experiencing a significant level of anxiety. She divided the subjects into two groups, one (the experimental group) receiving treatment (eye movement while thinking about the anxiety producing event), the other (the control group) receiving no treatment. Results demonstrated the effectiveness of the treatment, with the experimental group reporting a reduction in anxiety, and the control group reporting no change. Obviously Shapiro is here attempting to establish a causal relationship between the dependent variable, the reduction of anxiety, as effect, and the independent variable, the eye movement, as the cause. (Bernstein 1994: 25-26) Shapiro s work here exemplifies, at least in some respects, Merleau-Ponty s position with regard to method. Shapiro forms a hypothesis based on her own initial experience and intuitions. She forms a hypothesis that comes to explicitly identify specific variables and the relationship between them. Moreover, one of the variables (anxiety) must be recognized as a subjective state of the experiencing subject and, even more, as the subject s own description of this state. While Shapiro s hypothesis establishes this cause and effect relationship by considering a number of subjects, it was reported that it was case studies (in-depth studies of individuals) that first generated research interest in 16
her hypothesis. 2 In addition, her hypothesis can perhaps act as a counter example to the currently popular method of cognitive psychology. As we have already seen, Merleau-Ponty, J.J. Gibson, and Ulric Neisser challenge the view of cognitive psychology that perception can be understood as beginning with isolated sense data that are then processed and organized cognitively. Perception itself, they counter, is already meaningfully organized. Human experience, then, must first be understood at the lived-through level. Shapiro s hypothesis is consistent with this claim in the sense that she reports that her eye movements, at least at first, where involuntary, or lived-through, when she first noticed their calming effect. Yet there are also aspects of her work here that seem to disagree with Merleau-Ponty s position, that the causal explanation focuses on an isolated cause, and that it really doesn t help us understand why the eye movement seems to reduce anxiety. Perhaps this understanding will come later, with the development of a more comprehensive hypothesis, and let us hope it does, since humans are not just a collection of blind mechanisms but whole persons who generally attempt to take up events in order to understand them and integrate them into their aware lives. This being said, we must certainly still recognize the possible value of this hypothesis for therapeutic treatment---at least until a more comprehensive understanding is reached. Freedom vs. determinism We should turn briefly to the final chapter of Merleau-Ponty s Phenomenology of Perception, entitled Freedom, for it will help us clarify the author s view of freedom vs. determinism and thus clarify the philosophical foundation of the view of causality we have just seen above. The chapter Freedom opens with a lengthy description Jean-Paul Sartre s view of total freedom, a view that claims that the individual creates and chooses all meaning. Nothing outside of me can determine who I am, for I am always free to interpret the world in any way that I wish. Moreover, within the context of a philosophy of total freedom, it is impossible for the external world, with its complete determinism, to interact with the freedom of the subject, which is total. Even internal motives, Sartre 2 Obviously, I offer this as an example of a type of hypothesis construction in psychology and not as an appeal to the most relevant current research. 17
claims, cannot influence my freedom, for if they did I would not be totally free. The typical discussion of motives is thus misleading, for we often image ourselves considering the range of motives and choosing according to the motive that appears most appropriate to us. Yet for Sartre it is not the motive that leads to the choice, but the choice that confers value on the motive. Nothing can limit the individual s freedom. In Sartre s philosophy, then, as Merleau-Ponty views it, the alternatives seems to be total freedom or total determinism, total freedom or none at all. However, Merleau-Ponty argues, this view of freedom is incomprehensible, since it is not associated with human action, but really exists prior to it. By defining ourselves as a universal power of Sinn-Gebung, we have reverted to the method of the thing without which and to the analytical reflection of the traditional type, i.e., we have reverted to Kant s philosophy and its rationalist demand for the universal conditions that account for the possibility of an experience of a certain kind, including that of freedom (PhP 239). In other words, Merleau-Ponty charges Sartre here with placing freedom outside of and before human experience, since it is the condition of freedom that makes human experience possible. Yet, Merleau-Ponty responds, since we are clearly engaged in the world, we are clearly confronted with the conditions of reality. Thus human freedom and meaning cannot be understood as just centrifugal but must be grasped as centripetal as well, or, rather, human freedom and meaning must be understood as appearing at the intersection of these two forces. If freedom is to mean anything, it must enter the world; it must do something, and in doing something it leaves a trace, a trace that becomes the basis for future acts. Moreover, if freedom really is to mean something, it must proceed from situations in which it already finds itself, otherwise it is detached from the world and thus really means nothing. True, we have indeed always the power to interrupt, but it implies in any case a power to begin, for there would be no severance unless freedom had taken up its abode somewhere and were preparing to move it (PhP 438). I cannot, as Sartre claims, confer upon the world any meaning that I wish. Insofar as I have hands, feet, a body, I sustain around me intentions which are not dependent upon my decisions and which affect my surroundings in a way which I do not choose (PhP 440). In addition, because these intentions are related to the anonymous functions of the body, they carry with them certain general and social meanings. 18
These intentions are not simply mine, they originate from other than myself, and I am not surprised to find them in all psycho-physical subjects organized as I am (PhP 440). Gestalt psychology, in fact, has shown that human perception is lawful in the sense that human beings perceive the world in typical ways. The dots below, for example, are normally perceived as six pairs (PhP 440)............. Now, neither Merleau-Ponty nor the Gestalt psychologists deny that other perspectives are possible, for neither denies that we can shift our perceptual perspective, yet this shift still relies on the given perceptual patterns and proceeds from them. Without these patterns we would not have a world but some sort of formless hyle. (PHP 440) Thus, there is an autochthonous significance of the world which is constituted in the dealings which our incarnate existence has with it, and which provides the ground of every deliberate Sinngebung (PhP 441). Furthermore, Merleau-Ponty maintains, because human beings are creatures of habit, because we tend to slip into certain favored ways of interacting with the world and each other, we must recognize the statistical frequency with which these modes will appear. For Sartre, on the other hand, the probable does not really exist, since his subject projects all meaning and is thus free from deterministic patterns, even probable ones. For Merleau-Ponty there are stable patterns in perceptual, personal and social life. There are favored ways of perceiving the world as well as favored psychological and sociological ways of being-in-the-world, and if this is true, then we should be able to find a basis for the probable in experience itself. The probable is not just a fiction. We have just seen above that for Sartre there is total freedom or none at all. We are either totally free or totally determined, for within the context of his philosophy the interaction between freedom and determinism are impossible. Yet, for Merleau-Ponty, as we have seen, human experience should not be pushed into such mutually exclusive categories. Human consciousness opens to the world through the body; or rather human consciousness is the body s awareness of and openness upon the world. As such, human consciousness is a part of a situation with which it blends through the human body, and that it is able to take up with at least a degree of awareness. Thus, humans are both conditioned and free, and at the same time. Embodied consciousness takes up the world and 19
carries it forward, and it is in doing so that consciousness experiences its freedom, its freedom to interrupt, its freedom to begin anew at each moment, yet always within the set of conditions that it finds itself present. (PhP 452) Causality and Society Just as we have seen above that human beings are an ambiguous mixture of the freedom of choice and determining events, we also find this same ambiguous mixture in the relationship between the individual and history. The individual as a free consciousness is never completely defined by social roles or objective social relationships, for individuals assimilate these conditions and yet attempt to move beyond them. Consequently, to properly account for a social event, and the involvement of individuals in it, we must not appeal to objective conditions alone, for we must also understand how these social conditions are brought to awareness by the experiencing subject. In addition, to properly understand a social event, the civil rights movement for example, we must not reduce it to the abstract decisions arrived at by isolated subjects, for this returns to the Kantian conditions of possibility for something to occur. What we must discover are the actual conditions of the civil rights movement, not the possible conditions of any social movement which are, after all, based on abstractions from actual events. A social movement does not exist before the subjects as a clear and distinct representation that is exactly the same for all. Rather, individuals and groups tend to work toward the change and improved conditions that are elicited or motivated by the specifics of their actual conditions. Of course, common links can be formed between individuals and groups, since many people within a particular society will have similar experiences and experience similar difficulties. Social movements are not blind. Human beings do act in the world with awareness and we do act with shared conscious goals in mind. Yet these goals are not based on the abstract judgments of isolated individuals and a detached universal intellect. These goals begin with various lived-through conditions that frequently suggest their own resolution, if not positively as some circumstance to move toward, at least negatively as conditions which can no longer be tolerated. Here Merleau-Ponty speaks of a lived-through or operative intentionality that is the basis for the more abstract judgments of an intellectual project, and he mentions that the mistake of objective thought, 20