second year course outlines 2012-2013 - School of Social Sciences ...

Kelly, S. 1999. What do we see (when we do)? Philosophical Topics 27 (1999)
Also available at www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~sdkelly
Further Reading:
*Carman, T. 2008. Merleau-Ponty. London: Routledge, Ch.2 [S]
*Kelly, S. 2005. Seeing Things in Merleau-Ponty. In T. Carman & M. Hansen, eds. The
Cambridge Companion to Merleau-Ponty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [O]
Kennedy, M. J. 2007. Visual Awareness of Properties. Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research 75 (2007) [O]
Madary, M. 2008. Specular Highlights as a Guide to Perceptual Content. Philosophical
Psychology 28 (2008) [O]
*Madary, M. 2010. Husserl on Perceptual Constancy. European Journal of Philosophy. [O]
Noë, A. 2005. Real Presence. Philosophical Topics 33 (2005)
Also available at http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~noe/
Overgaard, S. 2010. On the Looks of Things. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 91 (2010) [O]
Siewert, C. 2006. Is Shape Appearance Protean? Psyche 12 (2006) [O]
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The Topic
In perceptual experience we are not only aware of objects and events, we are also aware of
the
ways these things are. That is, we are aware of properties. How are properties given in
experience? In particular, how is it, if at all, that an object’s properties (shape, size, colour)
are
given as constant despite the fact that the object is presented from constantly changing
perspectives, in constantly changing ‘adumbrations’? A number of different answers to this
question have been proposed by philosophers and psychologists, amongst them Merleau-
Ponty.
Merleau-Ponty presents his philosophy as situated between two extremes, that he calls
‘empiricism’ and ‘intellectualism’. Rejecting both ‘empiricist’ and ‘intellectualist’ accounts of
perceptual constancy, Merleau-Ponty presents his own view that constancy is a
consequence of
the fact that the perception of objects is, in a certain sense, normative and always situated
within a
perceptual context.
Merleau-Ponty’s account can be criticised by arguing that not all objects are perceived in
relation
to a norm, or by arguing that he imposes too stringent requirements on the alternative views
that
he considers.
The Reading
This week’s reading, the first part of ‘The Thing and the Natural World’, is a selection from
Merleau-Ponty’s main work Phenomenology of Perception. Like the rest of the book, it is
dense
and can be difficult to follow, partly due to its literary style (Merleau-Ponty, like Sartre, took
the
view that an accurate description of phenomena often demands such language), partly due
to the
complexity of the discussion. Merleau-Ponty first deals with shape and size. The views that
he
rejects—the ‘empiricist’ view of the ‘psychologist’ and the ‘intellectualist’ view associated with
Kant—are introduced and rejected within the first few pages, his owns view articulated soon
after.
Next Merleau-Ponty turns to the case of colour—about which he has a good deal more to
say.
Much of this discussion is difficult, especially the lengthy account of lighting.
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