The Perceptual Process

Gurwitsch*, Aron

doi:10.1007/978-90-481-3346-8_7

Aron Gurwitsch*³

Part of the book series: Phaenomenologica ((PHAE,volume 194))

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Abstract

When looking at a material thing, for example, a house, it is perceived from the point of observation of the viewer. The house appears as near or remote; these attributes are understood with reference to the place from which the experiencing subject observes. The house appears as being straight ahead or located on the side. The observer may perceive it before him or from some height. Its mode of presentation depends upon the standpoint of the observer. The house may be seen in bright sunshine, at dusk, through fog, etc.

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Notes

1.
Cf. Husserl, Ideen, §§41 f. and Cartesian Meditations, §17.
2.
Cf. Husserl, Ideen, p. 279.
3.
In this part, Chapter III, Section III, the raised question will be answered in the sense of the second alternative.
4.
Husserl, Ideen, pp. 74 ff. and Cartesian Meditations, p. 40.
5.
Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, p. 66.
6.
Husserl, Ideen, pp. 77 ff. and 315.
7.
Part III, Section VIb.
8.
Cf. supra, pp. 183 ff.
9.
Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, pp. 70 f.: “ … we change the fact of this perception into a pure possibility, one among other quite ‘optional’ pure possibilities—but possibilities that are possible perceptions. We … shift the actual perception into the realm of non-actualities, the realm of the as-if, which supplies us with ‘pure’ possibilities … we keep the … possibilities … as a completely free ‘imaginableness’ of phantasy. Accordingly, from the very start, we might have taken as our initial example a phantasying ourselves into a perceiving … the universal type thus acquired … removed from all factualness … has become the pure ‘eidos’ perception, whose ‘ideal’ extension is made up of all ideally possible perceptions, as purely phantasiable processes … every fact call be thought of merely as exemplifying a pure possibility.”
10.
Cf. Husserl, Ideen, p. 310.
11.
Husserl, Ideen, p. 311. “Im Fortgang dieses immer vollkommener veranschaulichenden und näher bestimmenden Phantasierprozesses sind wir in weitem Masse frei, … aber völlig frei sind wir nicht, wofern wir im Sinne eines einstimmigen Anschauungsganges fortschreiten sollen, in dem das bestimmbare Subjekt identisch dasselbe ist und immerfort als einstimmig bestimmbar verbleiben kann.” Cartesian Meditations, p. 51. “If one keeps no matter what object fixed in its form or category and maintains continuous evidence of its identity throughout the change in modes of consciousness of it, one sees that, no matter how fluid these may be, and no matter how inapprehensible as having ultimate elements, still they are by no means variable without restriction. They are always restricted to a set of structural types, which is ‘invariable,’ inviolably the same: as long as the objectivity remains intended as this one and as of this kind, and as long as, throughout the change in modes of consciousness, evidence of objective identity can persist.”
12.
Husserl, Ideen, p. 75 and Cartesian Meditations, p. 42.
13.
Husserl, Ideen, p. 78.
14.
Cf. Chapter II, Section I of this part.
15.
Cf. Chapter III, Section I of this part.
16.
Husserl, Ideen, pp. 74 ff. “In Wesensnotwendigkeit gehört zu einem ‘allseitigen’, kontinuierlich einheitlich sich in sich selbst bestätigenden Erfahrungsbewusstsein vom selben Ding ein vielfältiges System von kontinuierlichen Erscheinungs—und Abschattungsmannigfaltigkeiten, in denen alle in die Wahrnehmung mit dem Charakter der leibhaften Selbstgegebenheit fallenden gegenständlichen Momente sich in bestimmten Kontinuitäten darstellen, bzw. abschatten.” Cf. also p. 78 and Cartesian Meditations, p. 39 ff.
17.
Cf. Chapter III, Section III of this part.
18.
Husserl, Ideen, p. 314. “Die regionale Idee des Dinges … schreibt ganz bestimmte, bestimmt geordnete, in infinitum fortschreitende, als ideale Gesamtheit genommen fest abgeschlossene Erscheinungsreihen vor, eine bestimmte innere Organisation ihrer Verläufe;” cf. also Cartesian Meditations, pp. 53 f.
19.
For a closer analysis of the vagueness and indistinctness of the references in question, cf. Chapter II, Section III of this part.
20.
Husserl, Ideen, p. 80.
21.
Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, pp. 45 and 61 f.
22.
This part, Chapter II, Section VIIb.
23.
Husserl, Log. Unt., vol. 2, VI, pp. 40 f. and 67; Ideen, pp. 80 f.
24.
In our article, “Quelques aspects et quelques developpements de la psychologie de la forme,” loc. cit., pp. 460 f., in SPP, Chapter I, we maintained that the concepts of Gestalt theory are insufficient to account for the organization of single perceptions into an embracing process and, correspondingly, of perceptual presentations or noemata into one coherent system through whose progressive unfolding and actualization the consciousness of the identity of the perceived thing in the face of a multiplicity of varying appearances is conveyed. Continuing, and deepening our studies, we have persuaded ourselves to depart from this earlier view of ours.
25.
Cf. Part II, Section XI.
26.
Cf. supra, pp. 134 ff.
27.
Cf. supra, pp. 130 ff.
28.
Cf. infra, pp. 212 ff.
29.
Cf. supra, pp. 199 ff.
30.
Cf. supra, p. 140.
31.
Cf. Stout, Analytic Psychology, vol. 2, p. 17.
32.
Supra, pp. 112 ff.
33.
Cf. infra, pp. 216 and 262 ff.
34.
Cf. supra, pp. 143 f.
35.
Cf. supra, pp. 131 ff.
36.
Cf. Husserl, Ideen, §48.
37.
Ibid., pp. 88 f.
38.
Ibid., p. 92.
39.
Ibid., pp. 92 f.; Cartesian Meditations, pp. 21 and 37.
40.
Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, p. 26.
41.
Husserl, Ideen, §135; Formale und transzendentale Logik, §94.
42.
Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, §30.
43.
Husserl, Ideen, pp. 296 ff.
44.
Ibid., p. 302, “‘Gegenstand’ ist für uns überall ein Titel für Wesenszusammenhänge des Bewusstseins.”
45.
Ibid., p. 296. “Prinzipiell entspricht (im Apriori der unbedingten Wesensnotwendigkeit) jedem ‘wahrhaft seienden’ Gegenstand die Idee eines möglichen Bewusstseins, in welchem der Gegenstand selbst originär und dabei vollkommen adäquat erfassbar ist. Umgekehrt, wenn diese Möglichkeit gewährleistet ist, ist so ipso der Gegenstand wahrhaft seiend.”
46.
Ibid., p. 319.
47.
Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, §29.
48.
Husserl, Ideen, §86 and pp. 301 ff. and 314 ff.; see also Cartesian Meditations, pp. 39 f. and 41 f.
49.
This chapter, Section III f.
50.
Husserl, Ideen, p. 86 and Cartesian Meditations, p. 62.
51.
The expression that we perceive, not interpret, a thing as a sphere, though we see it from one side only, will be justified later. Cf. infra, this part, Chapter II, Section I.
52.
As to the dependence of perception and perceptual organization upon previous experience, see our account of the gestalt theoretical view on the matter, Part II, Section IIIa.
53.
Husserl, Ideen, pp. 86 and 287. Cf. also Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la Perception, pp. 343 f. and 395 ff.
54.
Farber, loc. cit., p. 538.
55.
Husserl, Ideen, p. 87.
56.
p. 213.
57.
Considering the essential contingency of the perceptual world, we cannot persuade ourselves to endorse Merleau-Ponty’s formulation; (loc. cit., p. 344): “Il y a certitude absolue du monde en général, mais non d’aucune chose en particulier.” Yet with his distinction between the existential belief in the world at large and that concerning particular perceivable things (see also loc. cit., p. 395). Merleau-Ponty points to a real and genuine problem. Later (Part VI, Section V). we shall show that existence cannot be predicated of the world at large in the same sense in which a mundane object is said to exist. At present, we wish to stress that both existential beliefs are affected by the phenomenological reduction (cf. Part III, Chapter I, Section III).
58.
G. Berger, Le Cogito dans la philosophie de Husserl, p. 95.
59.
Ibid., pp. 44 and 135.
60.
Cf. Part III, Section III, for our account of the phenomenological reduction.
61.
Berger, loc. cit., p. 135.
62.
Cf. this chapter, Section IV.
63.
Husserl, Ideen, §143 and pp. 311 ff.
64.
Cartesian Meditations, p. 62. “ … an actual Object … is an infinite idea, related to infinities of harmoniously combinable experiences—an idea that is the correlate of the idea of a perfect experiential evidence, a complete synthesis of possible experiences.”

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Aron Gurwitsch*

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Barbuda Lane 18231, Houston, 77058-3401, USA
Richard M. Zaner

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Gurwitsch*, A. (2010). The Perceptual Process. In: Zaner, R. (eds) The Collected Works of Aron Gurwitsch (1901-1973). Phaenomenologica, vol 194. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3346-8_7

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3346-8_7
Published: 31 January 2010
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