that describing perception in terms of the hold our body takes upon the object differs from the empiricist description of the perceiver as merely passive. And it also differs from an intellectualist, as well as from a Husserlian, account in the sense that it does not imply that the hold is constituted by the body or, more generally, by the perceiver. Merleau-Ponty (PP, 216–17) argues that perception takes place within a field, which means that the perceiving activity is distributed over all the elements of the field.4 How so? A field is a structure—for more on the notion of “structure,” I refer the reader to chapters 2 and 7—in which each element owes its significance to the general configuration of the other elements of the field (PP, 313). In the case of perception, this field consists, first, of all the sensual qualities of one object. This implies that a sensual quality of an object is determined by the other sensual qualities attributable to the same object. The color of a carpet, for example, is determined not only by the color of the yarn, but also by the woolly touch of the carpet, its dusty smell, the way it absorbs sounds, and so on.
Second, the perceptual field also comprises the sensual qualities of things related to the perceived object. Our sensation of the blue of the carpet, for example, is also determined by our sensation of the blue of the sky we see when we look out the window of the room, and by the blue of the ocean of our dream from the night before. Our sensations always take place against the background of other actual or virtual (past or future sensations, fantasies, etc.) sensations. One consequence of this intertwinement is that sensual qualities imply one another. When I see and touch the floor covering, I can imagine what it will sound like. Also, my perception of the carpet can already imply the perception of a room with a certain intimacy and coziness. The coziness is “perceived” through sight. In other words, every sense leaves its proper domain as it seizes onto qualities it cannot theoretically access.
For Merleau-Ponty, this intertwinement of sensations is the result not of an intellectual correlation constructed over time, but of an intertwinement that is built into our very body. Were we to appeal to an intellectual correlation, we would have to explain how the mind produced this correlation, and that would lead straight back to the sensations and confront us anew with the question of how something in one sensation can possibly refer to another one. Therefore, the “unity and identity of the tactile phenomenon do not come about through any synthesis of recognition in the concept, they are founded upon the unity and identity of the body as synergic totality” (PP, 316–17). The fact that the color of a thing is codetermined by what is actually and virtually heard, smelled, and felt at that same moment presupposes an exchange between the different senses: it presupposes the body as a synergic system. And so, for sensual qualities to determine one another, the senses themselves also need to form a field (PP, 406).
This conception of the body as a synergic system or field allows Merleau-Ponty to distance himself from a mechanistic view of the body. The body is not a complicated machine in which organs are functionally attuned to one another, directed by chemical and electric stimuli. On the contrary, the senses are constantly transgressing their own domain. They are intertwined, but, strictly speaking, this intertwinement does not serve a specific goal. In contrast to the functionalist view, which distinguishes the instrument from the goal that can be reached with it, Merleau-Ponty’s body cannot be separated from the “purpose” it serves, which is to act upon and move within the world. The body is the subject that acts in the world, and not simply the instrument that allows for actions to be taken. Hence, the intertwinement of the senses is grounded not in functionality but in the participation of the lived subject in the world, in existence. The body is fundamentally being-to-the-world (être-au-monde), and the world is always a world perceived by our body. And so, in the end, perception can also be said to presuppose a field formed by body and world: “Our body as a point of view upon things, and things as abstract elements of one single world, form a system in which each moment is immediately expressive of every other” (PP, 301).
The suggestion that perception takes place in a field implies that it originates neither in the world nor in the perceiving subject, but somewhere in between (PP, 4). More specifically, perception consists of the endless reflection of body and world in one another. Merleau-Ponty (VI, 139) illustrates this with the image generated by two opposing mirrors, which form an image whose origin cannot be traced. How must we understand this reciprocal determination of body and world? As I already mentioned, the world must already make some sense in order for us to perceive it, but it cannot already be entirely determined, as that would imply that there is no longer a need to perceive it. Baeyens writes: “Perception is a process wherein percipiens and perceptum wait for one another, are tuned to one another and become what they are thanks to one another. There is no perceptum as long as it does not receive form, dimension and structure from a percipiens, and there is no percipiens as long as it does not experience the structure and style of the perceptum” (2004, 53; translation mine). Perception can thus be described as an activity in which we adapt to what we perceive. It is not so much an activity in which we try to access what is posited in front of us, but an activity in which we try to make our inclusion in the world more explicit, more determinate (PP, 30). Body and world—but also the elements of the field “world” and of the field “body” taken separately—partake of a circular play of lending and borrowing.
What this means, first of all, is that body and world are not extrinsically related, as empiricism and intellectualism would have it: they refer to one another intrinsically. A second contrast with empiricism and intellectualism is that the world cannot be seen as being definite, or ready-made. The perceiving body has an active role in what the world is to us. It brings the world into existence for us, at which point we can explore it in perception and thought. Merleau-Ponty (PP, 213) translates this as follows: actual perception needs to be preceded by a kind of familiarity between body and world. He illustrates this with reference to the disoriented feeling we have when actual perception contradicts this preperception or familiarity. For example, when we wake up in the middle of the night, thirsty for a glass of water, and we drowsily open the fridge and take the bottle of white wine instead, we do not immediately recognize the taste of wine because the body was expecting water. It is only by going through our memories of what beverages were in the fridge and by examining meticulously the consistency and the taste in our mouth that we are able to identify the liquid in our mouth as wine. The body has to configure itself to what will be perceived in order for perception to actually occur (PP, 214). And in order for the body to configure itself rightly, it needs to already have an inkling of what will be perceived. However, the body’s active role in bringing the world to existence does not imply that the world is constituted by the body. If we want to touch something, it is precisely because we want to be confronted with something we cannot give to ourselves. Merleau-Ponty writes: “The perceiving subject must, without relinquishing his place and his point of view, and in the opacity of sensation, reach out towards things to which he has, in advance, no key, and for which he nevertheless carries within himself the project, and open himself to an absolute Other which he is making ready in the depths of his being” (PP, 325–26). Because it is impossible to decide the share of the body and of the world in perception, Merleau-Ponty prefers to describe the subject of perception as an impersonal “One” (PP, 240), and to complement “seeing” and “being seen” with a “Visibility” and a “Sensible in itself” (VI, 139). Just like the Kantian thing-in-itself, the Sensible in itself is not reducible to what a person can or cannot see. But contrary to Kant, Merleau-Ponty situates this Sensible in itself not beyond the phenomenal world, but at its very heart. The Sensible in itself is the condition of perception that is situated inside the phenomenal world. We will return to this idea in the second chapter.
Summing up what we have said so far, Merleau-Ponty’s analysis shows that perception is generated neither by a thinking subject nor by a recording body. Nor can perception be reduced to an unconscious judgment or to the passive reception of insignificant stimuli that are assembled by memory and association. Perception does not consist of constructing an image that mediates our access to the world. On the contrary, perception directly
