Month: November 2021

Reading Husserl’s ‘Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology’

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

In this post, I will discuss my experience of reading Edmund Husserl’s ‘Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology’, which was published in 1931 and in English for the first time in 1960.

Rene Descartes’ Meditations form one of the key inspirations behind this collection of lectures by Husserl. ‘The aim of the Meditations is a complete reforming of philosophy into a science grounded on an absolute foundation’, Husserl like Descartes aims to establish this science. However, this science is to be based on on the pure ego just like how Descartes went back to it in his Meditations. The scientific aims of Husserl’s phenomenology can be contrasted to Merleau-Ponty’s approach to science. Husserl sees phenomenology as a science of consciousness, whereas Merleau-Ponty, also a phenomenologist, is critical of what Classical science can teach us about the world, especially when disciplines like art can reveal more about the world. It is interesting to see this contrasting approach between two phenomenological thinkers and it shows how the field developed across time.

How do we access pure consciousness? The answer lays in the technique of phenomenological reduction or epoche. This essentially is an approach where one suspends one’s attention away from the objective world to focus on what is in consciousness. The ego abstains ‘from position-takings’ and also ‘practices abstention with respect to what he intuits.’ It is important to point out that Husserl is not suggesting we abandon our belief in the objective world, but rather he urges to redirect our attention to what lays inside.

Of course, this is quite difficult because the concept of intentionality. This idea states that consciousness is always consciousness of something. It would therefore seem very hard to access pure consciousness. Husserl suggests we should split the ego, make a distinction between the part that is a disinterested onlooker and the ‘naively interested Ego’. We should then describe purely what we see in its basic forms. The step after this is to vary the features of the object we are conscious of, we engage in a sort of play through which we consider the different properties of it. For example, we ask is a table still a table if we change its colour? The answer is yes. However, if we remove the top of the table away from its legs then it would be no longer a table. Husserl writes ‘perception, the universal type, thus acquired, floats in the air, so to speak- in the atmosphere of pure phantasiableness’. Once we have distinguished between what is necessary to the object and what is accidental to it, we can then identify the essential part as being part of the structure of consciousness. The idea of imaginary variation (this process) is an interesting methodology and I wonder what would happen if we applied the technique to historical accounts of objects. Might consciousnesses of past individuals/societies be structurally different to our own? Or would they be similar, perhaps even a table can still be a table without its top.

One issue I found interesting is Husserl’s treatment of how we apprehend objects. Merleau-Ponty suggests objects are shown in their entirety by one property, Husserl takes a more traditional approach and suggests we understand objects through synthesis. Husserl talks of a die and how there is a ‘flow’ of consciousness through which we unite its essential features. This is not at odds with imaginary variation, because it is the essential features that unite in the consciousness and not the accidental ones.

Husserl also explores intersubjectivity or the community of monads (individual egos) in quite some depth. He suggests that individuals participate in an objective world and therefore form a group or a community. The existence of other monads makes this existence of the objective world a possibility. Furthermore, the fact that we share intentionality of certain objects means that this world must exist. An interesting question raised by Husserl surrounds the existence of ‘other’ worlds (like Greg Anderson has suggested). Husserl’s response to this idea is quite negative, he calls it ‘pure absurdity’. In fact, he suggests there is only a single community, the community of all monads and groups of monads.

The body also plays a role in Husserl’s phenomenology. This was to my surprise because he is an earlier thinker when compared to Merleau-Ponty. The ‘organism’ plays a sensory role in detecting other monads. Still he suggests that the body is ‘here’ in contrast to the ‘thereness’ of other individuals. It was fascinating to see Husserl mention the body, as it allows one to consider potential similarities and differences between Husserl and Merleau-Ponty.

Husserl’s ‘Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology’ do what they say they will- discuss key aspects of the Husserl’s thought, as well as engaging with the Cartesian approach to consciousness. I would recommend the book for anyone wanting to gain insight into his philosophy, while it is not as readable as Merleau-Ponty’s World of Perception, it is still a good way to acquaint or reacquaint with Husserl’s phenomenology.

Reading Merleau-Ponty’s ‘The World of Perception’

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

In this post, I shall discuss my experience of reading Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s ‘The World of Perception’.

A collection of seven lectures, the chapters in this book were originally broadcast on French national radio in 1948. In them, he covers a wide range of themes from science to art to perception. I start by highlighting what Merleau-Ponty has to say about science. As readers of my blog will know, I have an interest in science (in particular, complexity theory), so it was intriguing to find out how a phenomenologist engages with it. Merleau-Ponty, overall, is critical of the what Classical science can tell us about the perceived world. He writes ‘it is not a matter of denying or limiting the extent of scientific knowledge, but rather of establishing whether it is entitled to deny or rule out as illusory all forms of inquiry that do not start from measurements and comparisons.’ Therefore, for Merleau-Ponty, there are ways other than science that can increase our understanding of the world.

Yet, rather than dismiss science as a whole, Merleau-Ponty still sees it is as playing a role. For example, he is not as dismissive of the physics of relativity. He argues that it shows that final objectivity is not possible due to the fact that the observer’s location influences the observation. It also rejects the notion of an absolute observer, therefore it simultaneously suggests that there is no such thing as pure intellect which can describe the world free of all human traces. It seems that modern physics is therefore not at odds with Merleau-Ponty’s vision.

Another crucial aspect of his thought in The World of Perception is his description of the role the body plays in understanding of the perceived world. He writes ‘we come across the idea that rather than a mind and a body, man is a mind with a body, a being who can only get to the truth of things because its body is, as it were, embedded in those things’. Merleau-Ponty thus rejects Cartesian dualism, by suggesting the mind and body are not separate and he states that the body, through which we encounter the world, is already embedded in things. This reminds me of Heidegger’s Being-in-the-World, in which an individual is already immersed in the world rather than a separate subject.

I now wish to discuss Merleau-Ponty’s further treatment of objects. The traditional way of describing our encounter with them, according to Merleau-Ponty, would be that the properties of an object present themselves to our senses and these are united through a process of intellectual synthesis. Merleau-Ponty presents an example of a lemon to discuss this traditional approach. A lemon is yellow to our eyes, for example, and is acidic in taste. It is also a bulging oval. However, he also suggests that this view is incorrect. Instead, he argues that ‘the unity of the object does not lie behind its qualities, but is reaffirmed by each one of them; each of its qualities is the whole.’ I was initially quite hesitant about this idea, but then when you consider that we may only experience one of its properties at single time, then Merleau-Ponty’s idea seems more persuasive. We, after all, might not necessarily see the ‘yellow’ of a lemon while sensing its acidity through taste, even if most people will likely.

A further point about our encounter with objects is that they provoke certain reactions in us, each one recalls a certain way of ‘behaving, provoking in us reactions.’ This is why, according to Merleau-Ponty, we can tell a lot about a person by looking at the objects that surround them.

Merleau-Ponty goes on to discuss a variety of other topics. One lecture is about the perception of animals, a topic that is highly intriguing because we can never know what it is like to be an animal, but yet at the same time we are forced to admit that they must perceive the world in somewhere. Art is another topic Merleau-Ponty addresses. He assigns a special importance to it because art forces us to look at an object and ask questions of it, they ‘convey to [us] the very secret of their substance, the very mode of their material existence.’ Art seems to force us to question what makes an object.

The final issue I wish to discuss is how Merleau-Ponty describes our encounters with other individual humans. Self-consciousness is already immersed in the world, we start from others experience, and not a separate intellect unaffected by what lies outside. Accordingly, ‘the contact I make with myself is always mediated by a particular culture, or at least a language that we have received from without and which guides us in our self-knowledge.’ This again critques the idea of a pure separate intellect, a running theme throughout The World of Perception.

In this post, I have discussed my experience of reading The World of Perception by Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Overall, it makes a number of interesting points about topics ranging from art to animals. However, for me, the most interesting parts were his discussions of our encounters with objects and what he has to say about science. Hopefully, this post has provided some insight into my thoughts about the text.

Review: The Realness of Things Past, Ancient Greece and Ontological History

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

In this post, I shall review Greg Anderson’s ambitious 2018 book ‘The Realness of Things Past: Ancient Greece and Ontological History‘.

Anderson, in the reviewed book, ‘proposes a fundamental change in the rules of historical engagement, a paradigm shift that would be roughly equivalent to the quantum revolution in modern physics.’ He argues that we should view each past way of life on its own ontological terms and abandon the categories we apply to them. The Ancient Athenians had no knowledge of ‘religion’, ‘state’ or ‘economy’, these are purely inventions of our own peculiar modern way of being. Meanwhile, we should view the Greek gods as having agency- yes, according to Anderson, they existed because the Athenian world had different rules to ours. Furthermore, the region of Attica was a living organism composed of different components that functioned together, it was not a ‘state’. To argue for this radical acceptance of ontological alterity, Anderson covers a wide range of subjects and disciplines including quantum mechanics, anthropology, postcolonialism and posthumanism.

He begins his account by outlining the traditional view of Classical Athens. Concepts like ‘democracy’ are criticised. Anderson exposes a number of contradictions, if we were to see Athens as such a thing. Firstly, how do we explain Athens imperialistic domination of 170 Greek poleis around the Aegean basin? Secondly, modern accounts are confused by how ‘democratic’ Athenians could hold superstitious beliefs. To many today, it would seem odd that they could be democratic and still hold such beliefs. However, Anderson is keen to point out that such a contradiction only emerges when we place our own expectations on Athens.

Anderson, however, in presenting his account of the fallacies of our way of historical thinking, portrays modernity in a homogenous fashion. For example, many believe in God and democracy, there is no contradiction there. Furthermore, there are many non-democratic countries in the modern world. It would be wrong to presume that everyone would apply the same categories to Classical Athens.

Nevertheless, Anderson’s point that there are alternate ways of being historically is well evidenced throughout the book. For example, the pre-colonial Hawai’ians were not individuals, instead they all participated in the being of the king. Furthermore, the description of Late Medieval society as a ‘body’ again shows there are different ways of existing than the modern Western individual.

A methodological issue that Anderson should have addressed is pertinent here. He takes a literal approach to the sources- in other words he accepts what they say without question. If the Athenians thought there were Gods then they must exist, if Attica is described as a body then it must have been a living organism. Critics could suggest that an ontological approach simply mistakes literary topoi for reality. Just because a writer said something, does not mean he intended it to be took literally. On the other hand, Anderson certainly provides a robust account of the ontological grounds for accepting the alterity of past ‘worlds.’ Quantum mechanics, for example, displaces the idea of an observation independent reality. Meanwhile, posthumanism questions the divide between nature and culture, genetics and nurture, environment and self. There are therefore grounds for believing there could have been alternate ‘worlds’ unlike our own. Of course, on a related note, perhaps due to quantum mechanics and posthumanism, Anderson could have reduced the emphasis on the domination of his notion of Western/Cartesian thinking. His idea of modernity does not stand scrutiny, when considered alongside the theories he mentions.

The final section of the book is focused on portraying what the alternative Athens would have looked life. One suggestion is that individuals were oikoi– family or household units. Athenian oikoi were part of the larger organism that they all comprised of. Individuals, in a sense, were dividuals, they were all components of a wider lifeform. There were also Gods and so rituals formed the main means through which this organism was sustained. Potentially, rituals were even more important than any economic, social or legal actions when it came to maintenance. Households also formed wider groups of being, which in themselves formed Demos, the unitary body. Overall, then Anderson’s portrayal of Classical Athens is quite unlike our ‘democratic’ and ‘individualistic’ conception of it.

Anderson’s book is radical and is somewhat attractive due to the way it appreciates past experiences and does not convert them into modern renditions. However, as highlighted, there are some issues that are addressed if ontological history is to gain wider acceptance. Nevertheless, Anderson remains thought-provoking throughout.