Henry Somers-Hall

Merleau-Pontys Critique of Kants Transcendental Deduction

Introduction

The aim of this paper is to explore Merleau-Pontys critique of one of

the

central

arguments

of

Kants

transcendental

idealism:

the

transcendental deduction. As we shall see, Merleau-Pontys relationship

with Kant is a complex one, with Merleau-Ponty both seeing Kant as
developing a philosophy of reflection that obscures the nature of
perception, but also reorienting the focus of philosophy towards a
perspectival account of the world. What I want to do today is to look at
where Merleau-Ponty considers Kant to have gone wrong in his account of
the world. As far as I know, Merleau-Ponty never gives a sustained
discussion of Kant, but references to him are found throughout his work.
Merleau-Pontys argument is that Kant essentially presupposes a nonreflective account of the world in formulating his own account of the
constitution of experience, but then covers over this non-reflective
presupposition by reading synthesis in terms of judgement. What I want to
do today is begin by looking at these parallels between Kant and MerleauPonty, focusing on the paradox of asymmetrical objects an important
moment Merleau-Ponty notes in Kants thought. I then want to look at how
Kant formulates his account of experience in the transcendental deduction
before turning to Merleau-Pontys alternative account.

So lets begin with what is perhaps the key question of the

Phenomenology of Perception. At the heart of Merleau-Pontys project is
the question of the origin of sense. This question draws on several uses of

the term sense. As well as asking about sense as meaning, MerleauPonty also investigates the related question of how experience comes to
be orientated in relation to phenomena (sense as direction). Merleau-Ponty
takes traditional accounts of sense to divide into empiricist and
intellectualist accounts.

Empiricism

Empiricism holds our ideas to be derived from experience, but

develops a certain model of experience based on our immediate
apprehension of qualitative sensory content. David Hume, for instance,
calls the first principlein the science of human nature the claim that All
our simple ideas in their first appearance are deriv'd from simple
impressions, which are correspondent to them, and which they exactly
represent. (T 1.1.1) Sensations are simple, atomic elements that are
immanent to consciousness, and can be known with certainty. All of our
ideas either derive directly from impressions, or indirectly, by being
formed as a complex combination of simple impressions.

The reason why Hume and Locke introduce these basic elements is
that they provide a moment that is a known with absolute certainty and
hence provide a foundation for the sense that we attribute to the world. If
an idea cannot be traced back to its constituent sensations, then we can
take it to be essentially meaningless. This test allows us to separate real
from false philosophical problems. This account of the immanent certainty
of impressions is combined with a model of truth as the resemblance of
ideas to structures in the objective world. For Hume, sense is explained

through the laws of association whereby simple ideas are formed into
complexes. Taking Newtons theory of universal gravitation as a model,
Hume suggests that the interplay of a small number of principles can
together lead to the generation of the complex ideas we find in
consciousness. Empiricism therefore claims that a meaningful world is
built up from various simple impressions that are associated with one
another to form complex unities. The notion of an object will therefore be a
complex idea of impressions of that object that are normally associated
with one another. Meaning or sense therefore emerges from these
associations between impressions.

As Merleau-Ponty notes, however, association cannot be the

foundation for sense, since everything is like everything else in some way,
and unlike everything else in another. As such, it cannot be simply the
presence of something that leads to the emergence of another impression.
If this were the case, then it would be impossible for us to explain why this
particular impression or memory was called to mind by another
impression. Rather, what allows us to associate one particular object with
another is that we view an object under a particular aspect as already
having a certain sense or meaning. It is the particular aspect under which
we see an object that leads us to associate it with something else. As
such, meaning precedes and makes possible association, rather than vice
versa. So the claim is that resemblance and contiguity emerge once we
see the world as made up of objects, rather that making such a world
possible. Ultimately, Merleau-Pontys claim is that empiricism illegitimately
attempts to reduce the normative nature of meaning to the normativity of
causal laws, which leads it to misrepresent the nature of meaning itself.

Intellectualism

Merleau-Ponty notes that the failures of empiricism lead naturally to

an intellectualist approach, where meaning is not constituted by laws of
association, but by the application of the principles of judgement to
sensation. For Descartes, what gives unity to our perceptions is the
function of judgement, and here the following example is key:

But then if I look out of the window and see men crossing the
square, as I just happen to have done, I normally say that I see the
men themselves, just as I say that I see the wax. Yet do I see any
more than hats and coats which could conceal automatons? I judge
that they are men. And so something I thought I was seeing with my
eyes is in fact grasped solely by the faculty of judgement which is in
my mind. (Descartes 1984a: 21)

There are a number of problems with this model. First, there is a

difference between believing something and perceiving something. When
we judge something to be the case, we normally take this to mean we take
some kind of a stand on the nature of something we make a decision.
This has implications for the intellectualist view that perception itself is
judging. Consider the following illusion, known as the Zllner illusion:

Here, the parallel lines appear to converge and diverge from one another.
For the intellectualist, illusions such as this present a real problem. The
reason is that once we recognise that this is an illusion, they have to hold
that we have two incompatible beliefs.

(i)

We judge that the lines are non-parallel (from perception)

(ii)

We judge that the lines are parallel (from recognising that this is
an illusion)

For the intellectualist, therefore, seeing the illusion involves having

contradictory beliefs, but this seems to go against a very clear sense we
have that there is a fundamental distinction between perceiving and
judging. Furthermore, what is taken to be an active judgement for the
intellectualist is often in fact simply a disguised receptive perception.
Perception is a judgement, but one that is unaware of its own reasons,
which comes down to saying that the perceived object gives itself as a
whole and as a unity before we have grasped its intelligible law. (PP 44)

Merleau-Pontys references to Kant are scattered throughout his

work, and show a deep technical knowledge of the Critique of Pure
Reason. While we might attempt to absorb Kants thought into the
intellectualism side of this distinction, there are a number of difficulties
with reading Merleau-Ponty as making this move. First, and perhaps most
obviously, the distinction Merleau-Ponty makes between empiricism and
intellectualism appears to track closely the distinction at the heart of
Kants critique of transcendental realism. In criticising empiricism and
rationalism, Kant shows that they similarly begin from a position of
assuming the reality of outer appearances. While on an orthodox
interpretation of Kant, the origin of sense is not the driving question of the
Critique, it is hard not to see traces of Kants account of transcendental
realism in the structure of the Phenomenology of Perception:

[Transcendental realism] regards space and time as something

given

in

themselves

(independent

of

our

sensibility).

The

transcendental realist therefore interprets outer appearances (if

their reality is conceded) as things in themselves, which would exist
independently of us and our understanding. [A369]

Similarly, while the understanding does structure perception for Kant, Kant
is an empirical realist, and as such, the constitution of experience in terms
commensurate with judgement occurs transcendentally we do not
experience judgement, but rather judgement is a transcendental condition
that makes experience possible. There is thus no difficulty in our empirical
selves not understanding the premises of perception.

Asymmetrical Objects

In fact, Merleau-Ponty praises Kant for recognising that experience

is at the heart of our relationship to the world. He cites an argument from
Kant derived from his paradox of asymmetrical objects that he uses to
show the impossibility of understanding the world in purely conceptual
terms. Kants argument here is directed at the Leibnizian view that there is
only a difference in degree between thinking and perception. Leibniz
argues that while there is a difference between Gods thought of the
world, and the thought of finite beings, this difference is merely a
difference in degree. For Leibniz, all of the properties of an object,
including the events that will happen to that object, are contained within
its concept, as an infinite number of predicates. Thus, for God, who
understands the infinity of predicates attaching to substances clearly, all
truths are analytic truths. Finite beings are unable to perform the kind of
infinite analysis of the concepts of entities that is open to God in order to
arrive at absolute truths. Since we cannot completely distinguish the
properties that make up objects, our understanding of the world is
confused. Space is that way that finite beings relate confusedly to eternal
truths that surpass their ability to rationally grasp. What are analytic a
priori truths for God therefore become synthetic a posteriori truths for
human beings:

As for my own opinion, I have said more than once that I hold space
to be something purely relative, as time is that I hold it to be an
order of coexistences, as time is an order of successions. For space
denotes, in terms of possibility, an order of things that exist at the

same time, considered as existing together, without entering into

their particular manners of existing. And when many things are
seen together, one consciously perceives this order of things among
themselves.1

Leibnizs view, therefore, is that perception involves a relation to things as

they are in themselves, albeit confusedly, and one that only differs in
degree from an intellectual relationship to them.

It is against this view that Kant presents the paradox of symmetrical

objects. In his critical period, the main formulation of the argument is
found in the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics:2

What indeed can be more similar to, and in all parts more equal to,
my hand or my ear than its image in the mirror? And yet I cannot
put such a hand as is seen in the mirror in the place of its original;
for if the one was a right hand, then the other in the mirror is a left,
and the image of the right ear is a left one, which can never take
the place of the former. Now there are no inner differences here that
any understanding could merely think; and yet the differences are
inner as far as the senses teach, for the left hand cannot, after all,
be enclosed within the same boundaries as the right (they cannot
be made congruent), despite all reciprocal equality and similarity;
1

Leibniz and Clarke, Correspondence, 15.

Kant also formulates this argument prior to the development of

transcendental idealism to argue for a Newtonian conception of
absolute space. It also appears in his Metaphysical Foundations of
Natural Science. Buroker provides an excellent treatment of the
argument and Kants changing uses of it.
8

one hands glove cannot be used on the other. What then is the
solution? These objects are surely not representations of things as
they are in themselves, and as the pure understanding would
cognize them, rather, they are sensory intuitions, i.e., appearances,
whose possibility rests on the relation of certain things, unknown in
themselves, to something else, namely our sensibility. (Prolegomena
37-8)

Kants claim here, therefore, is that objects encountered in space have

properties that cannot be fully captured in purely conceptual terms. If we
think about the qualities and relations that make up a hand, we can note
that all of the distances and angles between the fingers are the same for
the left and the right hand. If an object were purely constituted through
conceptual relations, therefore, it would be indeterminate in relation to
handedness. There is thus an inner difference that exceeds conceptual
determination. Kant associates this with the spatial manifold, and uses this
argument to justify his claim that there is a difference in kind between
intuition and the understanding, and that both are needed for cognition of
the world. It is this difference in kind that is at the heart of transcendental
idealism, and which forms the central problem of the transcendental
deduction.

Merleau-Ponty cites Kants paradox of asymmetrical objects to make

two points about our relationship to the world. First, Merleau-Ponty notes
that the paradox shows that there is something brute in our experience
We have to install ourselves in an experience. (Nature 21) That is, the
notion that experience is from a given situation or perspective is central to

it. Kant himself recognises the importance of this non-conceptual element

to experience in What is Orientation in Thinking?, where he argues that it
is the subjective distinction (239) between left and right that allows me
to orientate myself within space. A purely conceptual understanding of the
world proves inadequate to explain experience if for a joke, someone had
shifted all the objects [in my darkened room] around in such a way that
the relative positions remained the same but what was previously on the
right was now on the left. (KPP 239) Kant notes here that it is the
nonconceptual feeling of difference between my two sides, my right and
my left, (239) that allows me to navigate the room. Kant goes on to note
that, not only does my orientation in the world require a non-conceptual
installation in experience, but metaphysical speculation itself requires a
relationship to our orientation in experience. When thinking of suprasensible objects, we certainly do not turn the object into an object of the
senses; but we do at least think something which is itself supra-sensory as
capable of being applied by our reason to the world of experience. (240)

Second, Kants paradox of asymmetrical objects points to a

difference in kind between sensory and intellectual structures. If intuition
were simply intellectualised appearances, (A271/B327) as Kant takes
Leibniz to believe, then the structure of intuition would be only a confused
form of that of judgement. As Kant points out in the Critique, however,
there is instead a difference in the way concepts and intuitions are
organised. Whereas concepts apply to representations by subsuming
them, these representations are not contained within it. This isnt the case
for space. The parts of a space are given as contained within it. (CPR
A25/B40) Merleau-Ponty sees in this claim by Kant the seeds of an

10

argument for the difference in kind between the structure of perception

and the structure of objective thought:

The idea must be again taken up and generalised: there is a

perceived signification that has no equivalent in the universe of the
understanding, a perceptual milieu that is not yet the objective
world, a perceptual being that is not yet determinate being. (PP 48)

What Merleau-Ponty is suggesting here is that as well as the causal

structures of association, and the subsumptive structures of judgement,
there may be a third mode of organisation that differs from either of the
others. The organisation of perception, which gives sense to the world,
would also be generative of our reflective categories of judgement without
resembling them.

Merleau-Ponty reads Kant as presenting a philosophy of situation

where the brute necessity of thinking discursively in relation to intuition
signifies the fact that thinking must always be from a particular
perspective on the world, and must trace its origin back to perception
itself. As such, Merleau-Ponty emphasises something like an element of
thrownness in Kants transcendental idealism. The transcendental
deduction is obviously of central importance, as it is here that Kant works
out the relationship between the categories of thought and intuition.

Kants transcendental Deduction

11

Kant

begins

the

transcendental

deduction

by

claiming

that

knowledge involves some kind of synthesis. That is, to make a statement

involves bringing together different concepts into a unity. He then notes
that

appearances

might

very

well

be

so

constituted

that

the

understanding should not find them to be in accordance with the

conditions of its unity. (CPR A90/B123)

Kants solution to this difficulty involves arguing that conceptual

thought plays a necessary role in experience. We can draw a distinction
between perception, which simply involves us being presented with
appearances, and experience. Kant argues that the difference between
perception and experience is that whereas perception simply requires
intuition, experience also involves the notion that we experience a world
of objects. When we look at our experience of the world, Kant argues that
the notion of an object is not directly given in intuition. Rather, our
experience of a world made up of things presupposes a conception of an
object, or object-hood. The question of the deduction can therefore be
reformulated as, what is it that allows us to experience a world of objects,
rather than simply appearances? The claim that the transcendental
deduction makes is that it is the understanding, which is the faculty of
concepts or rules which gives us the concept of an object. As such, the
understanding plays a necessary role in experience, and the gap between
the different faculties has been bridged.

Kant

notes

that

what

distinguishes

experience

from

simple

sensation, therefore, is that appearances are related together into unities.

In the B deduction, Kant argues from the claim that:

12

It must be possible for the I think to accompany all our

representations; for otherwise something would be represented in
me that couldnt be thought at all, and that is equivalent to saying
that the representation would be impossible, or at least would be
nothing to me.i

Now, when we think of a process such as listening to a melody, all of the

different notes of the melody need to be related to the same
consciousness, and recognised as belonging to the same consciousness.
Otherwise, we would have a sequence of moments that were unconnected
with one another, rather than the unity of a melody. When we analyse the
process of listening to a melody, then we can note that the melody itself is
not given as an appearance. We can make a similar claim about the
relationship between the different moments of our experience of external
objects. When we walk around a building, we are given a series of
perspectives on it. A condition of seeing these different perspectives as
being perspectives of the same building, however, is that I am able to
relate them together as being my perceptions of the building. Otherwise,
we would simply have a series of fragmentary appearances. We can go
further than this, and say that without the unity of consciousness, we
would not just see appearances of different buildings. We would simply
just see a series of appearances without any kind of unity they wouldnt
relate to anything.

This unity doesnt come from the I think that is able to accompany
all of our representations. Often, for instance, our experience lacks any

13

explicit reference to an I. Rather, the I think that Kant begins with is a

sign of a deeper process of unification. Behind the analytic unity of the I
think, therefore is a synthetic unity. This unity is provided by the
transcendental unity of apperception, which allows the I think to
accompany all of our representations. This condition which makes possible
the I think has what appears to be a faintly paradoxical nature in Kants
account, since it doesnt occur in experience itself. This means that it is
not something that we can have knowledge of, but something we must
presuppose as a foundation for experience. We can say something similar
about the object. It cannot be given in experience, and rather is a
condition for the possibility of experience. It is really simply a way of
allowing the various appearances that are given to us to be united in a
rule-governed manner. Essentially, it allows appearances to refer to
something beyond themselves, and thus, like musical notes that refer
beyond themselves to a melody, to form the kind of unity that we need in
order to be able to apply the I think to our representations.

Once Kant has shown the necessity of a subject and object for
experience, he goes on to argue that each of these reciprocally makes the
other possible.

First,

the

subject

makes the

object

possible.

For

representations to stand in relation to objects, it is necessary that the

representations themselves have a certain unity. This unity is provided by
the transcendental unity of apperception, which allows the I think to
accompany all of our representations. As subjects unify representations,
they consequently ground the transcendental object, which is simply this
formal unity of representations. The subject in turn is grounded by the
object, since through the synthetic nature of the manifold it comes to

14

know itself as a subject, and as that which synthesises the manifold. As we

have argued, Kant cannot know the self as substantive, since it is not
given in intuition, being a bare unity. Therefore, it is necessary for the
subject to ground itself through some other means. In this case, the
manifold, which is a synthetic unity, gives us this grounding, since it
appears as the result of an act of the subject. If the subject were passive
in relation to the representations which come before it, the subject would
find itself unable to draw apart from those representations. Without the
notion of an object, there can be no distinction between a representation
and an object, and without this distinction, the subject would be unable to
know representations as representations. They would simply crowd in
upon the soul (CPR, A111). The concept of an object allows the subject to
recognise representations as representations of the object, and thus to
distinguish itself from them. Thus the subject becomes aware of himself
through the unification of representations into an object, through his
recognition of himself as a spontaneous consciousness. The subject
therefore makes the object possible for Kant, and the object makes the
subject possible. This means that the subject necessarily relates to
something beyond its own empirical representations, to a world of objects,
even though the form of these objects must be generated by the subject
itself.

We can now return to our earlier question. How does Kant show that
thought can be related to intuition? For experience to be possible, the
subject needs to synthesise appearances into objective unities. What is
integral to judging is that it was an active process, and that it involved the
relation of properties to the concept of an object. The categories that

15

structure experience share the structure of functions of judgement, but

also contain a reference to intuition. They thus give us the essential
characteristics of what it is for something to be an object (to be a
substance, to have properties, etc.), and so it makes sense for the
categories of the understanding to provide the rules by which the
synthesis takes place. Thus we have a situation whereby appearances are
synthesised into experience by relating them to the notion of an object,
and in order to relate appearances to the notion of an object, we need
rules governing objects in general, and these are the categories.

Kants approach here is important because it show the interrelations

between a number of concepts, such as judgement, the object, synthesis
and consciousness. Conscious synthesis takes the form of a judgement.
When I count, or bring together the moments of a judgement (the table is
red), it is I who actively relates these representations to one another. In a
sense, the spontaneity of my ego is what holds together the passive
determinations, table and redness. In taking this kind of synthesis as
the model for synthesis more generally, Kant develops a conception of
experience that implies the relationship of a subject to an object, one that
characterises the world in terms of properties. As we shall see, MerleauPonty accepts Kants discovery of the rich web of interrelations between
these concepts. A result of this is that an attempt to diverge from any of
Kants core concepts will necessitate a broader set of revisions to all of
these concepts. This will involve a rejection of judgement as the
paradigmatic model of thinking. I now want to move on to look at exactly
where Merleau-Ponty thinks that Kant goes wrong in his formulation of the
transcendental deduction.

16

The Phenomenal Field

Merleau-Ponty

argues

that

Kants

approach

presupposes

our

perceptual relationship to the world that when Kant justifies each step of
his Analytic with the famous refrain if a world is to be possible, he
emphasises that his guideline is furnished him by the unreflected image of
the world.3 (VI 34) While Kant recognises this initial moment of
unreflective engagement with the world, Kant fails to recognise that there
are other modes of possible synthesis than those given by reflection, and
hence fails to recognise that our primary engagement with the world has a
structure that is different in kind from the structure of reflection. Thus, it
operates in a style that is not the sole possible one, and mixes in
presuppositions which we have to examine and which in the end reveal
themselves to be contrary to what inspires the reflection. (VI 32) MerleauPontys criticism of Kant is therefore that he effectively falls foul of a
transcendental illusion when he takes judgement to be the basic mode of
synthesis of perceptions. Kant essentially begins with the notion of
experience as mutilated thought (VI 35), and then through the
transcendental method, attempts to show how this notion of experience
can be constituted. It thinks it can comprehend our natal bond with the
world only by undoing it in order to remake it, only by constituting it, by
fabricating it. (VI 32) In effect, Merleau-Ponty accuses Kant of covering
3

In this section, I am relying on Merleau-Pontys analysis of

reflection in the Visible and the Invisible. While in this text MerleauPonty provides some criticisms of his earlier work in the
Phenomenology of Perception, this doesnt affect his rejection of
Kant and reflection, which in this text is given a more explicit form
than in the Phenomenology of Perception. I will return briefly to the
divergences between the Visible and the Invisible and the
Phenomenology of Perception at the end of the chapter.
17

over a non-representational synthesis of perception with the juridical

model of the transcendental deduction, and hence understanding the
constitution of experience in terms of a false movement. 4 As such,
Merleau-Pontys approach prefigures Deleuzes later response to Kant that
he develops in Difference and Repetition. In working through MerleauPontys criticism of Kant, I want to focus on answering three questions.
First, I want to ask, what is the unreflected image of the world that
Merleau-Ponty begins with? Here, its important to note that in arguing for
the primacy of perception, Merleau-Ponty is not rejecting Kants claim that
experience is of a world of objects. For Merleau-Ponty too, we relate to
objects as well, albeit his conception of the constitution of objects differs
markedly from Kants. The second question follows from this. If experience
does not have the character that Kant assumes, then what gives unity to
experience? As we shall see, Merleau-Ponty here argues for an alternative
to what we might call a juridical model of synthesis, introducing the notion
of a

transition synthesis. The final question is, given Merleau-Pontys

critique of Kant is based on Kants misrepresentation of experience, how is

it that Kant is able to misidentify something so fundamental as the
structure of experience?

1. What is the unreflected image of the world?

As I outlined at the beginning of this paper, in attacking empiricism

and intellectualism, Merleau-Pontys key target appears to be perceptual
atomism. In order to develop a critique of this account of perception,
Merleau-Ponty draws on the work of Gestalt psychology in order to show
4

While Merleau-Ponty is critical of reflection, his criticisms rest on its

forgetfulness of perception,
18

that this fundamental element of the classical model of perception is in

fact never perceived. As Merleau-Ponty notes, experiments show that the
basic element of perception is not the kind of homogeneous unit
presupposed by Humes account. Rather, perception is necessarily
horizonal. This background is not a contingent feature of perception. In
fact, a figure against a background is the most basic perceptual figure
that can be given. (PP 4) As such, Merleau-Pontys claim is not that the
basic unit of perception is affected by its background, but that the basic
unit of perception is a complex structure including its background. This
leads to a number of important implications that move us away from the
classical synthetic model of perception. First, the notion that perception
always requires a context makes the kind of foundationalist project taken
up by empiricism and intellectualism problematic. We can no longer build
up the meaning of our perceptions by a process of analysis and
combination. Rather than sense being imposed on perception through a
process of constitution that is external to the elements that make it up, we
instead have an autochthonous mode of organisation. As Merleau-Ponty
notes, when we look at a patch of colour against a background, we can
see that our perception takes on certain formal elements. The borders of
the white patch belong to the patch and, despite being contiguous with
it, do not join with the background. The patch seems to be placed upon
the background and does not interrupt it. (PP 4) Even in the case of this
simplest of perceptions, therefore, the parts that make up the perception
point beyond themselves, and hence are already organised in terms of
sense.

19

We can note that while we consider objects to have determinate

borders and properties, this isnt the case with perception. When we
examine our own visual field, for instance, despite the fact that the edges
of the field may correlate with the edge of the sensitive area of the retina,
we do not experience our visual field as having a determinate edge to it.
We ought to thus perceive a sharply delimited segment of the world,
surrounded by a black zone, filled with qualities without any lacunae, and
subtended by determinate size relations like those existing upon the
retina. But experience offers nothing of the sort, and we will never
understand what a visual field is by beginning from the world. (PP 6)
Similarly, Merleau-Ponty notes that children do not initially perceive a wide
range of colours, but until nine months of age, appear to only distinguish
the coloured and the achromatic. As they develop, they gain a sense of
warm and cold tones before developing a whole range of colours. What we
have here is not a failure to properly attend to the nature of colour, but
rather a process where by indeterminate qualities are thematised as
consciousness develops. To pay attention is not merely to further clarify
some pre-existing givens; rather, it is to realise in them a new articulation
by taking them as figures. (PP 32) Even the basic empiricist notion of a
patch of colour is something that operates within a context that prevents
immediate access to an atomic given: When I say I have before me a red
patch, the sense of the word, patch is provided by previous experiences
through which I learned how to employ the word. (PP 15)

What is important to note in this account of perception is that

Merleau-Pontys theory of perception is not simply a rejection of atomism.
Psychological atomism is but a particular case of a more general

20

prejudice: the unquestioned belief in determinate being and in the world.

(PP 510) This generalisation of the claim is important. The reference to the
wider problem of determinate being makes clear that there is a sharp
divide between Merleau-Ponty and a figure who might also reject atomism
such as Hegel here. For Hegel, to understand something (in a technical
sense) as determinate requires that we see it in relation to another. Here
there is a key difference from Merleau-Ponty in that in the case of
something and other, while something does indeed require a relation to
that which it is not in order to become determinate, and hence falls
outside of the atomism, the relation is one that is reciprocal. Something
and other each contain the other for Hegel, and are determinate to the
same degree. This points to an essential difference from the figure-ground
structure of Merleau-Pontys phenomenology. For Merleau-Ponty, too,
thinking is constitutive of the structures we find in the world, and it is
through a process of attention that we make an object determinate. As
Merleau-Ponty puts it, the act of attention is, however, at least rooted in
the life of consciousness, and we can finally understand that it emerges
from its indifferent freedom to give itself a present object. The passage
from the indeterminate to the determinate, this continuous taking up
again of its own history in the unity of a new sense, is thought itself. (PP
33) Nonetheless, this background of indeterminacy is a necessary
component of our perception. A figure is not perceived against other
objects, but against a horizon that remains indeterminate. This is a
necessary feature of perception, which always occurs from a perspective,
and thus always requires that the space of perception has a direction, and
hence a horizon:

21

Thus, since every conceivable being relates directly or indirectly to

the perceived world, and since the perceived world is only grasped
through orientation, we cannot dissociate being from oriented
being; there is no reason to ground space or to ask what is the
level of all levels. (PP 264)

This explains the experience of the child with colour. It is not the case that
they are simply inattentive to the nature of colour. Such an approach
conflates a previous indeterminacy with a determinate but unattended to
characteristic of the object, and hence falls prey to the experience error.
Rather, certain features of the object that are initially a part of the
indeterminate horizon of the object are actively constituted as the object
itself. Attention therefore constitutes a new determination of the object,
and this new determination is then read back into the previous relations
with the object. What Merleau-Ponty is proposing, therefore is an
asymmetric relationship between a figure and background.

2. How is experience constituted?

We can now move on to the question of how experience is

constituted. Merleau-Ponty notes that Kant starts [the transcendental
deduction] with the principle that if a perception is able to be my own, it
must from the start be one of my representations. (VI 43) We have
already seen how various claims Kant makes in the transcendental
deduction form a network of mutually supporting assumptions, and
Merleau-Ponty notes that this assumption that perception is to be
understood in terms of representations is key. Once we make this claim

22

that Kant draws from the analytic unity of apperception, we are left in a
position whereby it must be thought that unites together the aspects
under which the object presents itself into the object itself. In relating a
series of passive representations to the concept of an object, Kant
therefore draws on the kind of synthesis we use when making judgements:

By synthesis, in its most general sense, I understand the act of

putting different representations together, and of grasping what is
manifold in them in one [act of] knowledge [A77/B103]

Thinking of perceptions in terms of representations that are amenable to a

model of synthesis based on judgement shows a sharp difference from the
account of perception Merleau-Ponty introduces. For Merleau-Ponty,
perception involves the determination of a figure against an indeterminate
ground. The kind of synthesis one finds in judgement involves bringing
together elements that are already determinate, however. For Kant, in
order for a judgement to be made of an object, what is required is for the
representations of the object to be synthesised into a judgement; thus, the
statement, All metals are heavy requires the subsumption of the
representation of heaviness under that of metal. Whilst the judgement
itself is based on the reciprocal determination of these terms through the
structure of the subordination of the predicate to the subject, the two
terms, predicate and subject, are still, in themselves, fully determined. As
each is determinate and self-sufficient, they require the agency of the
subject in order to bring them together. This leads to the result that the
unity of the object is governed by the categories, and hence, as Kant
shows in the second analogy, that this unity in turn implies that the object

23

be understood as participating in a field of objective determinate objects

systematically integrated into a set of relations of cause and effect. 5 Once
the nature of the world is understood in terms of relations of knowledge, it
is no surprise that there is no place for perception as something prior to
the objective and universal structures of the categories. The world
becomes an invariable system of relations to which every existing thing is
subjected if it is to be knownlike a crystal cube, where all possible
presentations can be conceived but its law of construction and that allows
its hidden sides to be seen in its present construction. (PP 342)

If we accept Merleau-Pontys claim that the simplest structure of

perception is a figure against a background, and hence, a mixture of the
determinate and indeterminate, then perceptions do not form the kinds of
determinate

entities

that

are

amenable

to

categorial

synthesis.

Furthermore, the fact that there is a sense, or normative structure, to

perception that differs in kind from that of judgement implies that there
may be another form of synthesis that differs in kind from categorial
synthesis. In accepting that perception has an irreducible sense within
itself, Merleau-Ponty considers that sense may not simply be bestowed on
a collection of passive givens by an active subject, but that perception
5

Merleau-Ponty discusses this implication in the Phenomenology of

Perception: Nevertheless, two sorts of reflections are possible here.
The first intellectualist reflection thematises the object and
consciousness, and, to repeat a Kantian expression, it raises them
to the concept. The object thus becomes what is, and consequently
what is for everyone and for all times (even if only as an episode
that is fleeting, but of which it will always be true that it existed in
objective time). Consciousness, thematised by reflection, is
existence for itself. And, with the help of this idea of consciousness,
and this idea of the object, it is easy to show that every sensible
quality is only fully an object within the context of the relations of
the universe, and that sensation can only be on condition of existing
for a central and unique I. (PP 226-7)
24

may present another mode of synthesis that sees experience organise

itself. Rather than the categorial synthesis we find in transcendental
idealism, it is organised according to a synthesis, if one can still speak
here of a synthesis, (PP 344) that Merleau-Ponty calls a transition
synthesis. As Merleau-Ponty notes, when we perceive a scene, our
perception cannot be understood as a series of representations that
require an external synthetic act of unification to be united. The
perceiving body does not occupy different points of view in turn beneath
the gaze of a consciousness who has no place and who thinks these
perspectives. (PP344) Rather, the different perspectives of my perception
are only distinguished from one another through my reflections on them. It
is only when I transpose my perspectival experience into the structures of
reflection that the moments within it become individuated. When we
looked at Merleau-Pontys claim that perception was organised according
to gestalt structures, we noted that individual impressions pointed beyond
themselves, implying borders or connections that were not strictly given.
As such, there was a fundamental indeterminacy at the heart of
perception, since spatial structures were determined by context. This
holds true for temporal structures as well, and individual perspectives on
the objects (to use the language of reflection) pass into one another
without definite borders. The diversity of points of view is only suspected
through an imperceptible slippage, or through a certain indeterminacy of
the appearance. (PP 344)

This openness within perspective means that each perspective (if

we can individuate them) therefore naturally opens out onto further
perspectives without the need for an active subject to bring them

25

together. Thus, experience is unified through time by a transition

synthesis, rather than a categorial synthesis. We can say something
similar in terms of the object itself. For Merleau-Ponty properties are not
simply abstract characteristics, by carry with them references to other
senses. A colour is never simply a colour, but rather the colour of a
certain object, and the blue of a rug would not be the same blue if it were
not a woolly blue. (PP 326) This more concrete understanding of the
nature of properties means that we can understood the object as being
unified by the singular manner of being permeating its different
properties, rather than requiring them to be related to an abstract object.
Merleau-Ponty gives the following example:

[T]he fragility, rigidity, transparency, and crystalline sound of a

glass expresses a single manner of being. If a patient sees the devil,
he also sees his odour, his flames, and his smoke, because the
meaningful unity devil is just this acrid, sulphurous, and burning
essence. In the thing, there is a symbolism that links each sensible
quality to the others. (PP 333)

This style of the thing (what Merleau-Ponty also calls the things sense)
indicates the way in which the thing encounters other objects in the world,
in much the same way that our own actions have a given style that
traverses different individual actions. This focus on encounter (properties
as a form of interaction) differs from the abstract conception of the object
that we simply judge that we find in intellectualism, though in fact, we can
see that when Descartes gives the wax example, all of the properties are
exemplified through our interactions with the object. This unity is

26

comparable to that of an individual whom I recognise in an irrecusable

evidentness prior to having succeeded in giving the formula for his
character, because he conserves the same style in all that he says and in
all of his behaviour, even if he changes milieu or opinions. (PP 243)
Nonetheless, style for Merleau-Ponty is not simply an atemporal horizon,
and like everything else is affected by context, allowing shifts in the
significance of an object over time.

This claim that perception is self-organising eliminates the need to

posit a transcendental unity of apperception and a transcendental object.
If perception organises itself, then there is no need to posit a
transcendental subject responsible for the organisation of experience. In
this sense, perception is primary, and prior to the subject. Merleau-Pontys
alternative conception of experience, therefore, points to a different
conception of the kind of synthesis that makes this experience possible.
Since the figure-background structure differs in kind from the structure of
judgement, a different form of synthesis is needed. I want to conclude by
raising a final question why does Kant mischaracterise experience in
terms of juridical synthesis?

Why does Kant mischaracterise experience?

To answer this question, we need to turn to the nature of the world.

The first thing to note is that the world for Merleau-Ponty is not something
like a totality of objects. It is rather a background against which objects
show up. What Merleau-Ponty wants to make clear is that the unity of the
world isnt the unity of something like a system of appearances that we

27

find in Kant, or of a fully determinate (and in principle, knowable) set of

relations, such as we might find in naturalism. Rather, Merleau-Ponty
introduces the notion of style once again, arguing that the unity of the
world is more like the unity of style of an individual that is recognisable,
yet unspecifiable:

I experience the unity of the world just as I recognise a style.

Moreover, the style of a person or of a town does not remain
constant for me. After ten years of friendship, and without even
taking into account changes from growing older, it seems to be a
relationship with a different person; after ten years of living in a
neighbourhood, it seems to be a different neighbourhood. Yet it is
only the knowledge of things that varies. Almost unnoticeable upon
my first glance, this knowledge is transformed through the
unfolding of perception. (PP 342)

The natural world is the horizon of all horizons, and the style of all styles,
which ensures my experiences have a given, not a willed, unity beneath
the ruptures of my personal and historical life. (PP 345)

As the horizon of all horizons is the ultimate horizon of our world, it

cannot itself be made a figure, since there is no horizon against which it
could appear. At the heart of Merleau-Pontys critique of determinate being
is the claim that Kant has fallen prey to a transcendental illusion that the
style of this ultimate horizon can be thematised as an object. While I
always perceive an object against a horizon, each horizon implies other
perspectives I could take on the object. Each object, then, is the mirror of

28

all the others. When I see the lamp on my table, I attribute to it not merely
the qualities that are visible from my location, but also those that the
fireplace, the walls and the table can seeThus, I can see one object
insofar as objects form a system or world, and insofar as each of them
arranges the others around itself like spectators of its hidden aspects and
as the guarantee of their permanence. (PP 71) While there is a tendency
towards seeing the lamp as a unity, in fact, in attending to aspects of the
object, others fall away into the indeterminate horizon. In this sense,
perception gives us a constant transitional interplay between determinacy
and indeterminacy. The implication of this is that the object cannot be
given in its absolute density, as attending to one moment of the object
involves others falling back into indeterminacy. Furthermore, given the
natural world is a horizon of all horizons, the world itself remains an open
and indefinite multiplicity where relations are reciprocally implicated. (PP
73)

The error emerges when we fail to recognise this necessary

horizontal nature of perspectives, and see each effectively as a possible
representation of the object. This is effectively to see these perspectives
as individual atoms, the totality of which condensed into a strict
coexistence (PP72) would give the absolute object. In comparing
representations in memory, we have already reached the level of
reflection, and we assume something like an immense World-Memory
(PP73) which is the source of our perspectives. The world is thus seen to
contain all perspectives simultaneously. Once we have intellectually
constructed the notion of an absolute object, we see this as the basis of

29

our perception of the world, and thus in turn deduce our experience from
the relations between objects.

Here we have the structure of the transcendental illusion at the

heart of Kants account of perception. Just as there is a tendency within
perception towards a transparent self, so there is a tendency in perception
towards giving us a determinate object. While it appears to reflection as if
the object can be given all at once by a synthesis of all perspectives, my
human gaze never posits more than one side of the object, even if by
means of horizons it intends all the others. (PP 72) The actual transition
from perspective to perspective entails a continual shift in the horizon: it is
a presumptive synthesis. Reflection takes this process of interplay as a
series of moments, all of which could be potentially given at once, and in
this forgets the object-horizon structure of perception. It effectively sees
perception as a series of representations which could simultaneously be
thought by an I think in the same way that a number of propositions
could be related together by the same subject. Whereas for MerleauPonty, the openness of the world is a result of the necessity of the horizon
structure, for the philosopher of reflection, we have what Merleau-Ponty
calls the universe, which is a completed and explicit totality where
relations would be reciprocally determined. (PP 73) Thus, by taking a
tendency within perception for an absolute state, reflection thereby
develops what Merleau-Ponty calls the objective thought of common
sense and science. Thus, what is the result and the natural continuation
(PP 74) of perception in the end becomes forgetful of its initial
perspectivism, and is forced to reconstruct our experience through the
categories of causal sequences or judgement. In this respect, Merleau-

30

Ponty notes ironically that while Kants analogies suggest the kind of
closed view of the world we find in the model of objective thought, or
reflection, in the antinomies, Kant rightly denies the possibility of thinking
of the world as a totality.

31

Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B131-2.