Dualism 1. Intro 2. The dualism between physiological and psychological a. The physiological explanations of the phantom limb do not work accounts for it as the suppression of the stimuli that should cause one to realise their bodily disfigurement. As such, when the patient goes to use the arm even after falling, the physiological explanation is made fallible. b. Dichotomising this, the psychological account requires that there be a psychophysical event that explains why the patient feels they have an arm. i. There is no neurological process to explain what is going on, as the nerves are severed at the stump. ii. Memory and positive judgment, according to Merleau-Ponty, does not explain anything about why they are feeling the arm there. c. MP recognises, therefore, that there is not a single impulse in the living body which is entirely fortuitous in relation to psychic intentions and the psychological is the same in that there shall be no psychophysical event or intention lest the living body not feature the required physiological part. d. There is therefore a dualistic notion infused in the psychological/physiological dichotomy, whereby the two cannot be reconciled. 3. Cartesian dualism a. MP claims that the union of soul and body is not an amalgamation between two mutually external terms, brought about by arbitrary decree. b. There is obviously some consideration for the mind-body problem here, but Merleau-Ponty does not explicitly address it. As such, I will endeavour not to deal with Merleau-Ponty s direct addressing of Cartesian dualism, but rather to show how the mind-body problem is dissolved in place of a being-in-the-world theory in accordance with MP s argument. 4. Merleau-Ponty s argument, which, I will show, will remedy the dualisms highlighted above, centres on his discussion of being-in-the-world, with reference to the body. a. Merleau-Ponty claims that a global presence of a situation gives a meaning to partial stimuli and causes them to acquire importance, value or existence for the organism. b. MP describes being-in-the-world as lived through the body. The body is like the ship which carries the subject into the sea of the world. He makes the point that there is always an I implicit in any experience of the world. An object is not perceived in the same way as one s own body is perceived and insofar as the body is driven to complete tasks that are aligned with projects that one has assigned the body, the body is one s own, according to MP. One therefore gains an implicit understanding of purposive world and at the same time an understanding of oneself.
c. MP claims that this is one s primary knowledge of the world and as it is not conscious as is evident in the case of the phantom limb patient falling over twice after trying to walk with their non-limb it must be preconscious knowledge Because it is implicit in our knowledge of the world and it is more powerful than our material understanding of ourselves (he doesn t stop using the limb even when he is looking at it). d. MP distinguishes between two kinds of body: the habit body and the body in the moment --- the habit body is one that is often sublimated for the body in the moment due to the fact that the preconscious knowledge of the habit body is not immediately recognisable or not readily intuited. The example in support of this is in the case of Schneider, whereby he is completely capable of using his habit body, in that his muscle memory works completely fine, but his abstract capacities have been damaged and so he struggles to imagine himself in certain, new imaginary, situations such as a military salute. It is for this reason that Merleau-Ponty claims that the habit body is the primary body and the body that is always presupposed in any experience of the world a damaged patient such as the phantom limb patient thus is incapable of recognising the material reality because the arm, as a necessary part of the body for completing the tasks of which one has assigned oneself, is part of a purposive habit body and not the material body which one perceives. 5. Thus, Merleau-Ponty provides a comprehensive account without reference to any dualistic notions: the subject is embedded in the world which the body provides, there is no distinction between mind and body as the soul is thought to be only understood in relation to the body, and there is no physiological/psychological dilemma because he does not have recourse to physiological and psychological explanations, while he yet provides a theory which is translatable into both. 6. Conclusion
Merleau-Ponty deploys four major arguments concerning why empiricism fails as an account of perception. Firstly, MP claims that empiricists consider the visual field to be constituted by coloured blobs, which are to be found if one looks more closely at the object in question. However, as MP outlines, this does not explain anything new about the object and is thus not a worthwhile theory of sensation. Secondly, MP claims that empiricism considers the qualities of objects to be properties of the object itself; yet, as MP claims, this is subject to environmental factors and thus does not consider one s experience of the object. Thirdly, empiricism is based on a kind of receiver/transmitter model that claims that sensation is to be understood by understanding the physical processes involved in sensory input and by understanding the physical properties of the object itself. Further, and fourthly, MP claims that empiricism overlooks one s primary identification of the object and the fact that any experience presupposes an association with this primary identification. He claims that the sensible cannot be defined as the immediate effect of an external stimulus. He gives the example of a dog. Any experience of a dog, when one can say that that is a dog, is presupposing a prior identification of that dog. Thus, any familiar experience invokes a prior experience which is important in developing a theory of perception, so long as we desire one that explains what the object actually is. Given that empiricism overlooks this it cannot be an adequate theory of perception. A similar line is considered in relation to the intellectualist position. MP claims that intellectualism also fails as a theory of perception, as it abstracts from the experience of the object. He says that the mistake of intellectualism is to make it self-subsistent, to remove it from the stuff in which it is realised, and to recognise in us, as non-derivative entities, an undistanced presence in the world. This is due to the fact that intellectualist accounts of perception abstract and make judgments about the world, which, by their very nature, fail to consider one s primary interaction with the world and the objects within it. Further, objects have their own inherent sense. An example of this is in a picture in which the lines are straight yet appear curvy. One knows that they are supposed to appear straight, yet, despite making this judgment, one cannot help seeing the illusion. So, the world is not to be perceived as something that is wholly and accurately understood by our rational capacities. Thus, MP claims that the intellectualist account of the world is wrong as well. At this point it may occur for the more cunning reader that there is an issue concerning the fact that MP has outlined that his theory has weight only insofar as it is the only post-cartesian view that does not come under the categories of intellectualism and empiricism, as he has defined it, and thus is the only reconciliation between the two. However, since the early 20 th century when MP wrote Phenomenology of Perception, there has been some developments in the theory of
perception and mind. Namely, Frank Jackson postulates a theory of property dualism that it is, in essence, a reflective theory; yet it is one that
Objective Thought 1. Intro 2. Empiricists and intellectualists alike fail to provide a theory of perception that does not presuppose a determinate wholly defined world. a. Empiricists i. Does not work because the empirical facts must always be consistent with the theory. An example is behaviourism: if the theory is that all pigs hate water because they avoid water at all costs, all it takes is for one pig to drink the water and the whole theory becomes invalid. They cannot explain why the pig drank the water. ii. They also fall into a number of traps; namely, the phantom limb situation, in which they cannot explain, with physiology or psychology, why someone would feel that they have an arm when they do not, in reality, have that arm. b. Intellectualists fail insofar as they abstract from the lived experience of the world to provide a theory of that world. By deriving an a priori theory concerning the world, intellectualists confer upon the world a judgment, which presupposes that this world is unchanging and fixed. c. Quote: the situation which unleashes instinctive operations is not entirely determinate, as is adequately shown by the mistakes and the blindness of instinct d. The phantom leg patient attempts to use his leg, falls and attempts to use it again. The instinctual operation, Merleau-Ponty claims, is therefore more embedded in the body s movement, than the body s corporeal faculties. This evidence would disprove the empiricist, in that the patient does not learn immediately and recognise that their arm has been amputated; it still feels as though the arm is there. It would also disprove the intellectualist because it is illogical as to why the patient should continue to attempt to use the arm. e. We embody the meaning of the objects they do not have meaning without our interaction with those objects so the figure does not have meaning for itself 3. Merleau-Ponty replies with what he believes to be is a reconciliation point between the intellectualist and the empiricist which is capable of taking account of these difficult situations. a. The union of soul and body is enacted at every instance in the movement of existence b. Thus, Merleau-Ponty attempts to derive a reflective theory without abstracting from the lived experience and thus losing what he will claim to be the primary faculties of one s existence. Namely, Merleau- Ponty refrains from presupposing that the world is fully determinate and instead endeavours to provide a theory of perception that takes account of the instinctual experience, which, he claims, is always presupposed, and even required, before any experience of an object. It anchors one to the environment and thus allows them to perceive objects. He is here invoking the Gestalt psychological theory, whereby a figure stands out and is capable of being assessed in terms of its material properties only by virtue of a background already having been