Desire and Distance: Introduction to a Phenomenology of Perception (Cultural Memory in the Present) - Softcover

Barbaras, Renaud

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0804746451 ISBN 13: 9780804746458

Publisher: Stanford University Press, 2005

Synopsis

Desire and Distance constitutes an important new departure in contemporary phenomenological thought, a rethinking and critique of basic philosophical positions concerning the concept of perception presented by Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, though it departs in significant and original ways from their work. Barbaras's overall goal is to develop a philosophy of what "life" is―one that would do justice to the question of embodiment and its role in perception and the formation of the human subject. Barbaras posits that desire and distance inform the concept of "life." Levinas identified a similar structure in Descartes's notion of the infinite. For Barbaras, desire and distance are anchored not in meaning, but in a rethinking of the philosophy of biology and, in consequence, cosmology.

Barbaras elaborates and extends the formal structure of desire and distance by drawing on motifs as yet unexplored in the French phenomenological tradition, especially the notions of "life" and the "life-world," which are prominent in the later Husserl but also appear in non-phenomenological thinkers such as Bergson. Barbaras then filters these notions (especially "life") through Merleau-Ponty.

About this title

About the Author

Renaud Barbaras is Professor of Contemporary Philosophy at the University of Paris-Sorbonne.

From the Back Cover

"Desire and Distance is based on recent research and presents new ideas on the problem of perception--ideas that are quite enticing. Barbaras is the world's leading Merleau-Ponty scholar, but what makes this book remarkable and philosophically important is that Barbaras distances himself from Merleau-Ponty and develops his own set of concepts with a high level of originality. In my opinion, Barbaras's book is remarkable." --Leonard Lawlor, University of Memphis

From the Inside Flap

Desire and Distance constitutes an important new departure in contemporary phenomenological thought, a rethinking and critique of basic philosophical positions concerning the concept of perception presented by Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, though it departs in significant and original ways from their work. Barbaras's overall goal is to develop a philosophy of what "life" is--one that would do justice to the question of embodiment and its role in perception and the formation of the human subject. Barbaras posits that desire and distance inform the concept of "life." Levinas identified a similar structure in Descartes's notion of the infinite. For Barbaras, desire and distance are anchored not in meaning, but in a rethinking of the philosophy of biology and, in consequence, cosmology.
Barbaras elaborates and extends the formal structure of desire and distance by drawing on motifs as yet unexplored in the French phenomenological tradition, especially the notions of "life" and the "life-world," which are prominent in the later Husserl but also appear in non-phenomenological thinkers such as Bergson. Barbaras then filters these notions (especially "life") through Merleau-Ponty.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Desire and Distance

Introduction to a Phenomenology of Perception

By Renaud Barbaras, Paul B. Milan

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2006 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8047-4645-8

Contents

Title Page, 
Copyright Page, 
Acknowledgments, 
Introduction: The Problem of Perception, 
1 - A Critique of Transcendental Phenomenology, 
2 - Phenomenological Reduction as Critique of Nothingness, 
3 - The Three Moments of Appearance, 
4 - Perception and Living Movement, 
5 - Desire as the Essence of Subjectivity, 
Conclusion, 
Author's Afterword, 
REFERENCE MATTER, 
Bibliography, 
Index of Names, 
Cultural Memory in the Present, 

CHAPTER 1

A Critique of Transcendental Phenomenology

Husserl's analysis of perception allows us to elucidate the structure of appearance as such. It draws our attention to the very phenomenality of phenomena and to its own modalities; in this regard, it is based on a phenomenology in a radical sense of the word. This structure of appearance is most often ignored, by virtue of its ostensive function; in effect, in disappearing behind the object, in making it present, the adumbration is dissimulated as specific moment and as such causes itself to be forgotten. Naïve consciousness becomes fascinated by the appearing, captured by its presence — which it tends spontaneously to split from its appearance, in other words, to posit as self-sufficient — such that the moment of manifestation, the adumbration, is reinterpreted according to the realist mode as a "subjective appearance," as the effect of a real thing on a consciousness that is itself real. The task of the phenomenological époché is precisely to break this fascination in order to revert from the appearing to its appearance — in short, to suspend the thesis of existence characteristic of the naïve or natural attitude. For this reason, insofar as it is the nature of phenomenality to conceal itself in what it presents, it would not be inaccurate to say that the aim of phenomenology is to show phenomenality, to render appearance as appearing. The whole difficulty, which makes the époché a particular form of vigilance rather than a unique gesture acquired once and for all, consists in clinging to the structure of appearance as such, in not using surreptitiously during its description characteristics belonging to the appearing being whose appearance is the condition of possibility. The rigor of a phenomenology of perception therefore depends on its ability to cling rigorously to appearance as such, to respect its autonomy, so that the époché could ultimately be defined as the prohibition against importing or transferring within appearance any determination stemming from the appearing.

In accordance with this first description of perception, phenomenality can be characterized as the originary cobelonging, the mutual interweaving between manifestation and appearing. The adumbration puts us in the presence of the thing itself, its being consisting in a presentation. The appearing being, by contrast, is given as being "there," in person, but this being has no content other than the ensemble of the manifestations that initiate in it and never falls outside its moments of manifestation. It is this situation that Merleau-Ponty thematizes under the title "perceptual faith": the world is nothing more than what we perceive, and yet we perceive the world itself. Manifestation is its own surpassing; it is more vast than itself, since it is the unfolding of the appearing. The appearing, for its part, remains always at a distance from self because it appears only in disappearing from this in (and as) what it appears, only in being in a way more profound than itself. At issue here is an originary and perfectly singular mode of solidarity, since each of the terms is the unity of itself and its corresponding term; the structure of appearance thwarts the laws of formal ontology, which are only the laws of the appearing. The task of an authentic philosophy of perception therefore consists, while maintaining itself in the pure element of appearance, in qualifying and conceiving of this structure of phenomenality with respect to its originality. What exactly is the nature of manifestation? To whom does the appearing appear? What is the subject's sense of the being of the manifestation? Finally, what exactly appears? Does what appears and what constitutes the object of perception exist in the mode of the object? To approach the ensemble of these questions is to attempt to give a meaning to the concept of intentionality, which is both central and mysterious. Moreover, it seems to us that Husserl, at least before the genetic "turning point," cannot respond clearly to these questions because he does not succeed in remaining in the element of pure appearance; he tears the intentional fabric in keeping with the duality between the subjective and the objective, thus remaining on the margins of the system of époché that he advocates.

In Ideas I, the analysis of perception appears as a necessary moment, subordinated to the unfolding of the thematic of phenomenological reduction. In effect, Husserl proposes an initial characterization of époché as neutralization of the general thesis of the natural attitude; however, instead of implementing it immediately, he returns to the sphere of phenomenological psychology in order to develop an eidetic of consciousness and natural reality. This eidetic aims at underlining the contrast between the absolute being of the immanent (of the lived) and the contingent being of the transcendent (of the perceived) and thus aims at laying the groundwork for effective and definitive implementation of the époché. The latter passes through the hypothesis of the nonexistence of the world — as a hypothesis rendered possible by the eidetic characteristic of the transcendent — and opens upon a reduction to the region of pure consciousness, the originary region within which and from which every being draws its meaning.

In discovering the sphere of consciousness as residuum of the époché, Husserl thus justifies assimilation of phenomenology to a transcendental idealism. Therefore, the description of perception as givenness by adumbrations must be understood in its opposition to the determination of consciousness, of the lived experience, that appears right away as what is given by the phenomenological époché. In effect, "What can remain, if the whole world [...] is excluded," if not a region of original being constituted by pure lived experiences? The latter can be described in terms of their own "content," by virtue of an eidetic necessity; the essence of the cogitatio involves in effect "the essential possibility of a reflective turning of regard and naturally in the form of a new cogitatio that, in the manner proper to a cogitatio which simply seizes upon, is directed to it. In other words, any 'cogitatio' can become the object of a so-called 'internal perception.'" Moreover, in contradistinction to the transcendent thing, the characteristic of lived experience is that it is not given by adumbrations. Nothing in it exceeds its manifestation; it is nothing more than it appears, an absolute identity between appearing and manifestation. It should be emphasized that the capacity for becoming the object of an internal perception is based on this characteristic essence of the lived experience; it is because it exists in the mode of referring to itself, of appearing to itself, that it can be reflected upon. We point out, on the other hand, that Husserl has recourse here to a concept of perception that is exemplary since the lived experience conceals neither any distance nor any emptiness; it fills perfectly the reflection that focuses upon it (or, in other words, fullness itself as a mode of existing). It can be seen here that there is a profound solidarity between the characterization of perception as fulfillment and the determination of the absolute as lived. It follows from this analysis that "every perception of something immanent necessarily guarantees the existence of its object"; in short, it is unquestionable in contrast with the transcendent object that, by virtue of its adumbrated being, can always prove not to exist. On the basis of this opposition between the absolute being of consciousness and the contingent being of the transcendent, Husserl is then able to take the step of constituting the transcendent within transcendental consciousness.

It is therefore not surprising that Husserl neither sticks to his description of perception as givenness by adumbrations nor attempts to conceive of appearance on the basis of manifestations insofar as they are manifestations of things. On the contrary, he reinvests in a concept of appearance that lies at the heart of Ideas I and that alone can sustain the manifestation of a transcendence; to say of a reality that it appears is to say that it is apprehended in and by a consciousness and therefore that it is constituted by means of lived experiences. The appearance of the worldly appearing necessarily refers to a more originary sense of phenomenality, namely the manifestation of the lived experience to itself; to appear is either to be lived or to be constituted by means of lived experiences. From this flows the analysis that Husserl advances regarding the real composition of perception. The adumbrations "are included among 'the Data of sensations'. ... Furthermore, in a manner which we shall not describe here more precisely, the Data are animated by 'construings' within the concrete unity of the perception and in the animation exercise the 'presentive function,' or as united with the construings which animate them, they make up what we call 'appearings of' color, shape, and so forth." Thus the appearance of the qualitative or formal moments of the object, as well as the object itself, is composed of two types of lived experience. The first is the sensuous hylé, corresponding to pure datum of sensation prior to and independent of any grasp of a meaning and therefore of even any minimal objectivation. The hylé is the pure experiencing of what is grasped without distance, the moment of pure receptivity; it is felt and not perceived (such as, for example, a sound that sounds in me "before" being apprehended as the sound "of this violin"). This must be contrasted with the experiences that carry in them the specific property of intentionality; these lived experiences animate the hyletic data by apprehending them in accordance with a sense that confers on them an ostensive function — that constitutes them as manifestations of something. Husserl qualifies them as noetic because they form the specific element of the mind, which they breathe, so to speak, into sensations that of themselves are inert. It is therefore by means of the noesis that animates it that the hylé becomes the adumbration of the object's corresponding moment; the adumbration refers to an adumbrating that itself relies on the animation of a sensible content by a sensory intentionality. For this reason, it is necessary to be careful not to confuse the hyletic moment with the corresponding objectual or noematic moment:

It must be borne clearly in mind that the Data of sensation which exercise the function of adumbrations of color, of smoothness, of shape, etc. (the function of "presentation") are, of essential necessity, entirely different from color simpliciter, smoothness simpliciter, shape simpliciter, and in short, from all kinds of moments belonging to physical things.... The adumbrating is a mental process. But a mental process is possible only as a mental process, and not as something spatial. However, the adumbrated is of essential necessity possible only as something spatial ... and not possible as a mental process.

Thus the relation between the one and the many is understood within perception. The diversity of manifestations does not contradict the identity of what appears because the adumbration and the adumbrated are situated on distinct levels. A sensible color (Empfindungsfarbe) can vary in the flux of the experience, all the while adumbrating a same noematic color or a same colored object; by noesis, the variations on the hyletic level will be constituted as changing manifestations of a single identical thing. Thus the noematic moment is to the hylé what form is to matter, and it is this relation that finally allows us to reconcile the diversity of adumbrations with the unity of the appearing object; one and the same form can be incarnated in distinct matters. In the same way that matter is always matter for a form, the difference of the adumbration does not constitute an alternative with the unity that it forms with the object in the manifestation; for this reason Husserl insists on the fact that "this remarkable duality and this unity of sensuous hylé and intentive morphé play a dominant role in the whole phenomenological sphere."

In moving from the description to the analysis of perception — that is, in elucidating its "real composition" — does Husserl clarify perceptual appearance? Does he respect its specificity? Is the reconstitution of transcendental phenomenality from two types of lived experience being articulated in accordance with the relationship between matter and form a true reconstitution that restitutes the tenor of what it purports to explain? Are we not involved, rather, in a decomposition of the structure of appearance by which phenomenality is disfigured and ultimately lost in terms of what is specific to it? This reconstitution of appearance lacks its essence because it relies on an unwarranted displacement: the analysis unfolds on a basis on which something like a composition can be brought to light, but this occurs at the cost of an inability to rejoin the effective figure of appearance. This displacement consists in situating the analysis on the basis of lived experiences, conceived of as "contents" accessible in an adequate intuition, in being given a sense of being of the subjectivity that not only prevents accounting for appearance but also reactualizes presuppositions that all phenomenological analysis aims to uproot. Indeed, this displacement appears from the beginning of the outlines of the description; the intuition of givenness by adumbrations is immediately inscribed in a conceptual framework that tarnishes its brilliance.

In this regard, it is revealing to compare section 41 of Ideas I, which deals with the real composition of perception, with the opening pages of The Visible and the Invisible, which are dedicated to perceptual faith. Husserl offers an example: "Constantly seeing this table and meanwhile walking around it, changing my position in space in whatever way, I have continually the consciousness of this one identical table as factually existing 'in person' and remaining quite unchanged. The table-perception, however, is a continually changing one; it is a continuity of changing perceptions." In the opening pages of The Visible and the Invisible, Merleau-Ponty attempts, just as Husserl does, to describe perception without presuppositions, to situate himself as close as possible to experience. The example chosen is still the one involving the table:

I must acknowledge that the table before me sustains a singular relation with my eyes and my body: I see it only if it is within their radius of action; above it there is the dark mass of my forehead, beneath it the more indecisive contour of my cheeks — both of these visible at the limit and capable of hiding the table, as if my vision of the world itself were formed from a certain point of the world. What is more, my movements and the movements of my eyes make the world vibrate — as one rocks a dolmen with one's finger without disturbing its fundamental solidity.

In both cases, the example of the table involves showing a certain relativity of perception while simultaneously showing that it does not compromise the permanence of the appearing thing; yet this relativity assumes, in each of the two authors, a fundamentally different significance. Merleau-Ponty clings strictly to what we can say about perception. Perception assumes a body in that at least my bodily movements, indeed the very mass of my body, can hinder me from perceiving. My vision of the world is always accompanied by a perception of my body, visible at the limit and in its limits: it is covision of my body. This signifies that my vision is made from the midst of the world, always from a certain point of view, and that the manifestation of the world is relative to this worldly being. This relativity that causes me to grasp the vision as "mine" depends on the mobility of my body, both in totality and in certain of its parts. Thus the variation of manifestations, the movement that characterizes the flux of the adumbrations, refers to the strictly spatial movement of my body. Now, if my movements can induce a movement of the thing seen ("make the world vibrate"), I never attribute these movements to the world — as if my mobility were unfolding a bundle of appearances — and its "fundamental solidity" is not weakened by it; the variations of my body do not hinder me from having the conviction of accessing the world itself. It should be pointed out here that the invariant contrasting with the bodily movement is grasped as the world and not as a thing. Be that as it may, my vision of the table depends on a body and therefore always implies a perspective, so that the table is seen from different angles, in different ways. It can even happen that what I judged from one perspective to be a table turns out to be something else owing to a movement giving me a more favorable perspective. But in any case, what I see is given as being there in the world — endowed with an unshakeable solidity because with regard to its being it exists independently of its corporeal variations — even if what is there turns out to be different from what I believed it to be at first sight. Merleau-Ponty adds, a little further on, thereby clarifying the meaning (at least in a negative sense) of the description: "I would express what takes place badly indeed in saying that here a 'subjective component' or a 'corporeal constituent' comes to cover over the things themselves: it is not a matter of another layer or a veil that would have come to pose itself between them and me."

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Desire and Distance by Renaud Barbaras, Paul B. Milan. Copyright © 2006 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. Excerpted by permission of STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0804746451
• ISBN 13: 9780804746458
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192