Traditional philosophical thought, from Descartes to Sartre, holds that mind is individual in the sense that it is purely subjective. Merleau-Ponty’s ‘The Child’s Relations with Others’ counters this traditional account; the essay serves to outline his own particular intersubjectivist account. He holds that the traditional distinction between self and other is not as decisive as empiricists and intellectualists, such as Locke, Mills and Kant, and that the distinction may not exist at all. Merleau-Ponty outlines what the theory of ‘separated individual’ means to the self in-the-world in order to defeat the distinction between self and other as an initial grounds for self. He pairs ‘classic psychology’ with the action of growing in the world, which gives him a tool by which to point out what he sees as decisive inconsistencies between the individual consciousness and the interaction of children as they grow into the world. The example Merleau-Ponty gives is of the child who enacts a smile obviously without the intellectual foreknowledge of the meaning, social or otherwise, of the act itself. The following quote is where Merleau-Ponty insists that the complex task of recognising, fulfilling and examining an analogous relationship with others is beyond the reach of the child who smiles:
How could it be possible if, beginning with the visual perception of another’s smile, he had to compare that visual perception of the smile with the movement that he himself makes when he is happy or when he feels benevolent – projecting to the other benevolence of which he would have had intimate experience but which could not be grasped directly in the other? This complicated process would seem to be incompatible with the relative precociousness of the perception of others.
It is clear from the quote that Merleau-Ponty finds the task put to the child too greater an expectation to bear merit. For the child to perceive visually an action from a complete and separate other and then categorically replicate such action, by inferring physical location and movement of self from the perception, is straining the analogy. Merleau-Ponty’s point is that the act and interaction implies a far less distinguished separation between self and others than the empiricist or intellectualist argument is willing to permit.
Merleau-Ponty’s arguments are an implicit critique of Sartre. In order to show how this is the case it will be helpful if we briefly look at how Sartre differs from the standard empiricist and intellectualist accounts of the likes of Locke and Mills, and then how he reconciles his own model of consciousness with perception. In Being and Nothingness Sartre conceives of consciousness as activity as apart from object, which allows him to reconcile the process of imitation. That is, for Sartre there is no fixed consciousness for the other to perceive and grasp; rather the resulting action of the body in situation is existence as object rather than subject. So the body is the operating facticity in the world, and because the existence for others is as an object, one is able to grasp the other because these actions are intended for the other, thus meaningful. For Sartre consciousness is still separate – Cartesian indeed – and operates fundamentally from the mind/body separation; perception of the other only indirectly involves the consciousness, which is seen as an activity wherein the meaningful relationships between the behaviours of the other and the world are perceived and imitated. The body of the other is separate from the consciousness of the other: the body of the other is an object, and this being the case the other as object is accessible to observation. One can imitate the other and reiterate meaningful action. Meaning is not transferred, but is rather conjured internally by the consciousness via its constant flight to become something in activity.
Merleau-Ponty’s account of the body is essential to his intersubjectivity that critiques Sartre’s account of the body and so it is important to clarify the account of the body that Merleau-Ponty puts forward. He constructs an understanding of the body as inseparable from its surrounds and from others. By understanding the body in these terms, Merleau-Ponty argues that when one perceives another, one does not perceive an external representation of the internal self within a body that is being perceived (as in a Cartesian position), rather one perceives of conduct, i.e., corporeal schema , as the other moves in-the-world. In spite of this, one is at least accustomed to identifying the other as a separate and individual body. The explanation Merleau-Ponty puts forward of the perception of other bodies consists of three simultaneous recognitions. Firstly, a recognition of a self image that exists in the world to be seen; secondly, the recognition to perceive the other as apart from; and finally the recognition of the background in which all these images are foregrounded.
Merleau-Ponty develops a fundamentally anti-Cartesian position, wherein an understanding of the other is essential to an understanding of the self. The wedge he uses to get this argument through, is an analysis of the kind of imitation that pre-linguistic children evidently carry out on a daily basis. Through this analysis, Merleau-Ponty develops an understanding of consciousness as outwardly bound, rather than inwardly secluded. An outwardly bound consciousness, i.e., a consciousness that is directed toward the world, is a consciousness that imparts conduct into the world. It is this conduct that Merleau-Ponty seizes upon as the convergence point between the self and other. Conduct is not pure action, as in the empiricist and intellectualist accounts, rather it is a structure of bodily interaction with the background in which the body is inseparable. This bodily interaction for Merleau-Ponty is never without intentionality. It is intentionality that constitutes meaning, and conduct can have meaning for others because the structure is easily identified and empathised with, as this quote shows:
the different sensory domains which are involved in the perception of my body do not present themselves to me as so many absolutely distinct regions...if we are dealing with a schema, a system, such a system would be relatively transferable from one sensory domain to the other in the case of my own body, just as it could be transferred to the domain of the other.
Systems of the senses are transferable between others, as the quote shows, unlike the sensory information itself. Conduct is ordered into a system (the corporeal schema), by the consciousness of the self carrying out intentional activity.
So, Merleau-Ponty has developed an account of consciousness that outlays structure through the body; he then turns to explaining how this structure is transferred from the self to the other. He does this by drawing out the reduction that takes place in the ‘mirror stage’ . The ‘mirror stage’ constitutes that period in life when a child is still not able to understand that the image in the mirror is an image of her; and the reduction here is that any external image may be construed as one’s own external image. The reduction that takes place in the mirror is the reduction of the specular image as being-for others relative to a self rather than an object in its own capacity. This is essentially the child coming to recognise that the image in the mirror is an image of her own body, and that the images of others can likewise be reflected in the mirror. Merleau-Ponty examines this occurrence of understanding as a synthesis in the understanding of others. What is happening here is a growth of intellectual understanding of the self and how the self is perceived in the world by others. This understanding thereby becomes reflexive and one’s own understanding of others develops. An analysis of this developmental stage for a child, coming to terms with the specular image, reveals for Merleau-Ponty the intersubjective nature of one’s existence. Through the development the individual comes to a different understanding of self; they are not able to develop a sense of self at all without the other. For the ‘mirror stage’ poses a reasonable model for the transference of the corporeal schema, which is the crucial element in the perception of others.
A detail of the processes of reduction in the mirror stage provides a map for how Merleau-Ponty builds a syncretic field out of the ambiguity between external images for the child. The syncretic field is the space on which the coupling occurs, and without it the coupling seems untenable. The child cannot draw a clear distinction between the image of herself reflected in the mirror and the image of another reflected in the mirror. So what is lacking here for the child is a clear association between the introceptive image of self that the child understands as herself and the image that is reflected back at her of her external shape and relative size to her surroundings, or her extroceptive image. What this means is that the child can easily transfer her own introceptive self upon the image of the other within the mirror, or specular space. There is no clear, previously existing, relationship between what one internally identifies as self and the existing external image of what others identify as that self, and so there is an ambiguous distinction between the two. This being the case, all of the child’s intentions, body actuality, and meaning can be seen coherently in the space of the specular image without causing confusion to the child. It is precisely that fluidity between extroceptive images and the body as it is for others, that allows for syncretic relationships to occur. Merleau-Ponty suggests that over the period of specular reduction for the child this transitive basis continues to allow a reciprocal dialogue of the corporeal schema to take place even when the child understands the place of the mirror and the true bodily ownerships of the reflections. The underlying ambiguity between the image of other that one grasps and the unknown image for others that one projects allows for one to take on and embody the for-itself image of another. This syncretic transfer of extroceptive images accounts for the transference of corporeal schema across two persons.
Merleau-Ponty is most critical of Sartre in the formation of alienation in the perception of the other; Merleau-Ponty uses alienation in order to make perception of the other possible opposing the alienation that is inherent in Sartre’s Cartesian consciousness. It is in the differing forms of alienation found in Merleau-Ponty and Sartre that we can begin to identify Merleau-Ponty’s work as a critique of the Sartrian account of perception of others. The perception of the other in Merleau-Ponty’s syncretic relationship begins before the child understands that their own body is separate and individual, therefore the bodily transfer of intentions via corporeal schema happens before communication, because communication requires clear distinctions between the doer and the receiver. When Merleau-Ponty introduces coupling (specifically in reference to Husserl) the nature of this relationship between the self and the other is so basic that Merleau-Ponty describes it as pre-metaphorical. This is not a claim that we are essentially the same thing, because that makes objects out of us and that is exactly what Merleau-Ponty is arguing against. The corporeal schema of one is useful and necessary only for the other, and vice versa. So in this very real transferred structure the two people are coupled by requiring that which the other gives over to the world by the nature of consciousness. Out of this transference comes an alienation between the two. Each incorporates a structure of the other that is inaccessible to themselves. One is removed from the gains, benefits, of the activity of the self. The outwardly bound consciousness is acting in such a way that it benefits another with itself without being able to apprehend its own benefits. The one can never have the perception of the self, but is in the knowledge of giving out the necessary structure in order to understand itself. This alienation frustrates self-understanding and is never overcome, but is essential to the perception of others. To these ends Merleau-Ponty is attributing coupling.
In comparison Sartre’s alienation occurs due to objectification, which Merleau-Ponty avoids in his intersubjective account. Sartre explains alienation as one recognising their body as an instrument among many instruments. In the same sense that the corporeal structure is given over to the other and used as means for perception, the body for Sartre is a tool for the self and the senses are given over to the world, much like any other object in the world, for the other to perceive of it as an object. That is to say, each is giving over something that is intrinsically inapprehensible for themselves, but is apprehended by the other and is key to the process of perception in both accounts. The other, in Sartre’s sense, is able to transcend what, for the subject, is impossible to transcend for the self. Merleau-Ponty’s coupling makes the other consciousness inseparable from the perception of the other, Sartre’s account requires the body other to be viewed in situation and the consciousness to be perceived indirectly. The act of coupling has no place in Being and Nothingness, and the objectification of the sense implies that one does not need consciousness of the other in-the-world for perception to take place. Sartre’s position is essentially Cartesian, while Merleau-Ponty’s is intersubjective. For Sartre objects are the only things that one can perceive and that it is only objects that are necessary to be perceived. Consciousness is nothingness, is never perceived and practically needs not to exist for perception to take place. Where the body in all its facticity and the senses reified are all that is required for the perception of the other. Coming across a body making use, inserting instrumentality to objects in the world, of the context in which it is placed is the extent to which Sartre accounts for participation in perception.
In conclusion Merleau-Ponty critiques Sartre’s account of perception of the other with the use of alienation in coupling consciousness. This allows Merleau-Ponty to rid himself the use of objectification and the use of a Cartesian sense of consciousness.
Bibliography
R. Audi (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, (edt. 2) Cambridge University Press, 1995.
N. Levy, “In-Itself, for-Itself and for-others; Sartre’s Ontology”, Sartre, Oneworld Publications, 1975
M. Merleau-Ponty, “The Child’s Relation With Others”, trans William Cobbm The Primacy of Perception, James M Edie (ed.) Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964.
M. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, Trans. Colin Smith, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962.
J-P Sartre, “The body-for-others”, Being and Nothingness, Trans H. Barnes, washinton Square Press, 1958.
End Notes
Merleau-Ponty’s account of intersubjectivity has been widely influential in contemporary philosophy. Partnered with the work of Heidegger the intersubjectivist accounts of being and perception have dominated continental philosophy since the publication of Phenomenology of Perception and Being and Time. The influence of intersubjectivity has stretched as far as the analytics, and its philosophical language has been read across most variants of philosophical discourse.
The following paragraph deals explicitly with the introduction Merleau-Ponty gives to the empiricist and intellectualist accounts in The Primacy of Perception, pg 113-17. This section is important because it sets the groundwork for the outward bound consciousness, which is a crucial development in the perception of others. This section in MP’s work is what immediately preceded the paragraph in question for this essay on page 118.
Although Merleau-Ponty does not explicitly state where classic psychology obtains their notions of individual consciousness, the description that Merleau-Ponty sets out in pages 113 to 115 of ‘The Child’s Relations with Others’ is recognisably the consciousness of empiricist philosophy such as Locke.
Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception, pg 116
Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception, pg 115
Sartre, Being and Nothingness, pg 349
Sartre, Being and Nothingness, pg 344
The term facticity as used by Sartre points to the facts of the situation that can be perceived and known. On page 342 of Being and Nothingness Sartre refers to the other’s body as “his facticity as an instrument”.
Sartre, Being and Nothingness, pg 352
Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception, pg 117
The term ‘corporeal schema’ as used by Merleau-Ponty is his expression of the structural shape that the consciousness takes in-the-world as it is the body in-the-world. This structure is interpretable by the other.
Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception, pg 117
Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception, pg 136
This paragraph is primarily concerned with the Merleau-Ponty’s formulation of the outwardly bound consciousness on pages 117 – 120 of The Primacy of Perception.
Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception, pg 117
Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception, pg 118
This reduction is the processes that take place within the child that allow the child to come to the three simultaneous recognitions aforementioned. Merleau-Ponty begins analysing the reduction on page 125 of ‘The Child’s Relations with Others’ and it continues onto page 141. He covers the intellectual account of the reduction by Wallon and discusses this against Lacon.
This section is my explication of the mirror phase that Merleau-Ponty discusses in some depth from pages 121 to 140 in The Primacy of Perception. I believe for the purposes of this essay it is important to understanding the function of the mirror phase in relation to the coupling in the perception of others. To aid this understanding a simply put account of the processes involved in the mirror phase is appropriate. I have not gone in depth in this matter, nor do I have the space to do this justice, but our understanding of the notion of coupling would be drastically weakened without it. I do not pretend that these two paragraphs adequately deal with all of Merleau-Ponty’s issues with the mirror phase, nor does it describe the mirror in detail, but it adequately covers the necessary basics for the express purposes of the essay.
Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception, pg 140
Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception, pg 140
The syncretic field is the space in which the reciprocal transfer of bodily movements, gestures, and place occurs between bodies via transivitism.
This paragraph is my close reading of the process of the mirror phase that Merleau-Ponty discusses in some depth from pages 121 to 140 in The Primacy of Perception. I believe for the purposes of this essay it is important to understanding the function of the mirror phase in relation to the coupling in the perception of others. See footnote 18.
Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception, pg 140
Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception, pg 119
Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception, pg 118
Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception, pg 118
Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception, pg 118
Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception, pg 115
Sartre, Being and Nothingness, pg 352
Sartre, Being and Nothingness, pg 342
Sartre, Being and Nothingness, pg 339
Sartre, Being and Nothingness, pg 352
Sartre, Being and Nothingness, pg 352
Labels: essay, merleau-ponty, philosophy, ros, sartre
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Of course, you would know more about this than I, being an essay writing person and me being a calculator comrade..
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