Husserl’s theory of perceptive donation according to profiles¹

Abstract

In this article, we focus on the theory of perception in Edmund Husserl’s philosophy. We present and discuss the description of the original form of donation of the perceived thing which, according to the philosopher, occurs amidst perception horizons marked by an inexhaustible multiplicity of perceptive profiles. Our specific problem is to evidence, among Husserl’s description of the perceptive process, the conjugation of three elements of phenomenological research: the intentional unity of perceptive awareness, the bodily I and the dynamics of presence and absence that characterizes the perceptive field. We are guided by the hypothesis that the link among these elements represents an affective condition of intentionality that rest on the unperceived.

Keywords:
perception; phenomenology; space

Resumo

Neste artigo, tratamos da teoria da percepção na filosofia de Edmund Husserl. Apresentamos e discutimos a descrição do modo originário de doação da coisa percebida, que, segundo o filósofo, se dá em meio a horizontes de percepção marcados por uma multiplicidade inesgotável de perfis perceptivos. Nosso problema específico consiste em evidenciar, em meio à descrição do processo perceptivo por parte de Husserl, a conjugação de três elementos da investigação fenomenológica: a unidade intencional da consciência perceptiva, o eu corpóreo e a dinâmica de presença e ausência que caracteriza o campo perceptivo. Orientamo-nos pela hipótese de que a ligação entre esses elementos configura uma condição afetiva da intencionalidade que se sustenta no impercebido.

Palavras-chave:
percepção; fenomenologia; espaço

Résumé

Dans cet article, nous éxaminons la théorie de la perception chez la philosophie de Edmund Husserl. Nous présentons et discutons la description de la façon originale de donation de la chose perçue, qui, selon le philosophe, se fait au milieu des horizons de perception caractérisés par une multiplicité inépuisable de profils perceptifs. Notre problème spécifique, c’est montrer, dans la description du processus de perception par Husserl, la combinaison de trois éléments de la recherche phénoménologique: l’unité intentionnelle de la conscience perceptive, le je corporel et la dynamique de présence et d’absence qui caractérise le champ perceptif. Notre hypothèse, c’est que le lien entre ces éléments configure une condition affective de l’intentionnalité soutenue par l’inaperçue.

Mots-clés:
perception; phénoménologie; espace

Resumen

En este artigo, tratamos de la teoría de la percepción en la filosofía de Edmund Husserl. Presentamos y discutimos la descripción del modo originario de donación de la cosa percibida que, según el filósofo, ocurre en medio de horizontes de percepción marcados por una multiplicidad inagotable de perfiles perceptivos. Nuestro problema específico consiste en evidenciar, en medio a la descripción del proceso perceptivo de la parte de Husserl, la conyugación de tres elementos de la investigación fenomenológica: la unidad intencional de la conciencia perceptiva, el yo corpóreo y la dinámica de presencia y ausencia que caracteriza el campo perceptivo. Nos orientamos por la hipótesis de que la ligación entre estos elementos configura una condición afectiva de la intencionalidad que se sustenta en el no percibido.

Palabras clave:
percepción; fenomenologia; espacio

Introduction

In this article we look at the theory of perception in Edmund Husserl’s philosophy. Our purpose, in general terms, is to present and discuss the description of the way originary of donation of the perceived thing, which, according to the philosopher, happens amid horizons of perception marked by an inexhaustible multiplicity of perceptive profiles. The Husserlian description of perception determines dynamics of conjugation of dimensions of presence and absence, of visibility and invisibility, which will be transmitted and investigated along the phenomenological tradition, reaching expression including in the cognitive sciences and in the neurosciences (Petitot, Varela, Pachoud & Roy, 1999; Berthoz & Petit, 2006). Our specific issue consists in evidencing, amid the description of the perceptive process by Husserl, the conjugation of three elements of the phenomenological investigation: the intentional unity of the perceptive consciousness, the corporeal being and the dynamics of presence and absence which characterizes the perceptive field. We orientate ourselves by the hypothesis, suggested in the works of (Montavont, 1999) and (Barbaras, 2006), of that the connection between those two elements configures an affective condition of the intentionality that relies on the unperceived thing. Our analyses certainly do not deplete the issue of the perception phenomenology, resumed incessantly by Husserl along his work, but should delineate their fundamental lines, as well as serving for one to identify the possibilities and difficulties which are inherent to them.

The perception priority in Husserl’s thought

The phenomenological tradition, in philosophy and psychology, reveals the perceptive experience as a privileged object of study. That is due principle reasons. Husserl, philosopher who initiates such tradition, breaks with the natural thesis of the world, that is, with the priority of the natural world in the understanding of our sensitive relationship of knowledge with the things and the others. According to the author, instead of directing ourselves toward things trying to know them as they are, should we persevere, on the contrary, to interrogate “the ways of their subjective donation” ((Husserl, 1954/2004, p.180), the ways by which any object offers itself as being, dimension forgotten by the natural attitude. In this exercise, called phenomenological reduction, Husserl reveals the character causative of the consciousness the appearance of any object which integrates our experience, so that “appearance” means, here, the very possibility of “being”, including for the consciousness itself, regardless of the difference in relation to its own way of donation. Once this discovery happens outside the naturalistic field, in which one affirms the presence of everything that exists only as a space-time thing, “subordinate to the rules of the universal causality” ((Husserl, 1954/2004, p. 325), the consciousness is defined as an originary region from where any other being’s region, including the natural world defined by science, takes its meaning. This original subjectivity escapes from the classic idealisms once one considers that the consciousness is nothing when is outside the relationship to something that it appears. Its meaning of being is to turn itself to something, is to have an intentional object. Therefore, it is not a question of a casual meeting between subject and object, but of an “essential and universal relationship” (Barbaras, 2009, p.44) between the subject of the appearance and that which appears. This consciousness, which ((Husserl, 1931/2001) calls transcendental consciousness, and that is presented in great part of his work as a main theme of research, would become nothingness in the absence of the relation to something appearing. The appearance of everything that “is” puts the perception in the center of this philosophy dedicated to investigate the universal a priori of the correlation between the subjectivity and that which appears.

It is necessary to observe that in the center of the Husserlian investigations there is the fundamental concern of any knowledge theory, namely, the question about the possibility of the experience. For Husserl, the investigation of the essence of the experience passes at first by the study of the essence of the perception, of the moments that turn it into perception of thing, of the “being-given-in-person” (Husserl, 1989, p.175), and which lead an object to accede to the apparition. The original ways of presentification of the world from perception open the field of study “of the different ways of presentification in general” ((Husserl, 1954/2004, p.182), such as the recollection and the imagination, besides evidencing the essential dimensions of the perceptive activity itself, as the temporality and the corporeity.

In the following analyses, we turn ourselves, at first, to works prior to the transcendental turning point in Husserl’s philosophy: Logical Investigations (Husserl, 1901/1962, 1901/1963) and the courses gathered in Thing and space (Husserl, 1989). They present the essential elements that interest us: the consciousness chain, which occurs in the relationship between the intentional experiences and the sensorial ones, the body in movement and the latency of the perceptive field, configuring, together, the perceptive trajectory. If we consider that the formulations on the phenomenological reduction and on the transcendental consciousness receive well-finished expressions in Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy ((Husserl, 1931/2001), which we will call hereafter Ideas I, it is worth emphasizing the importance of the Husserl’s initial descriptions on the perception for the establishment of the originary meaning of experience and knowledge, as well as for the delineation of the experiences dominion of the consciousness as fundamental object of study of the phenomenology. Following the work, we focus, precisely on Ideas I, the resumption of the problem between unity and multiplicity in the perceptive intentionality from a new conceptual reference: the noetic-noematic structure. Lastly, based on texts about passive synthesis (Husserl, 1966/1998) and from First Philosophy (Husserl, 1959/1972), we broach the question of intentional horizons, finishing the hypothesis of affective dynamics of perception.

The perceptive donation per Abschattungen: first considerations

In the center of the Husserlian perception is the description of the perceived thing based on the notion of Abschattung. Incessantly revisited by Husserl, it roots the main ambiguities that the perception phenomenology encompasses (Granel, 1968). The etymology of the term Abschattung refers to the idea of an action of a shadow that gradually presents defined contours. In the French versions of Husserl’s works, referred to by us², the term has been translated as “esquisse”, not in the sense of a draft, but “in the sense of a sketch that is already drawn more or less on the horizon” (English, 2002, p. 54, author’s emphasis). In Portuguese, according to the current use in the works and translations devoted to this theoretical dominion, we will use, preferably, the term “profile” to refer to the perceptive donation per Abschattung. In Husserl, the term refers to “the emergence of a spatial ‘appearing’ in the originary dominion of the perception” (English, 2002, p. 54, author’s emphasis). The term alludes mainly to the visual perception field, to the fact that what appears “never can be given unless from a certain side, in perspective, via such and such contours, without its face and reverse ever appearing at the same time” (English, 2002, p.54, author’s emphasis). As we will see, the noncompletion of the current perceptive donations, present in “flesh and blood” (Husserl, 1989, p. 37), will be defined as a fundamental eidetic characteristic of the intentional perceptive functioning (English, 2002). In Logical investigation V, (Husserl, 1901/1962) presents the notion of Abschattung in the context of a detailed exposition of consciousness through the concept of experience and of the description of the experiences, in order to differ them from the perceived objects. The “modern psychology”, represented in the text by the mention to Wundt, is described as science of the experiences or consciousness contents. In the perspective of the “modern psychologist” (Husserl, 1901/1962, p. 146), it is a question of aiming at true occurrences, mental events, which constitute “due to their multiple concatenation and interpenetrations the real consciousness unity of the psychic individual”, writes (Husserl, 1901/1962, p. 146). On the contrary, the philosopher’s intention is to consider the experience “in a sense purely phenomenological” (Husserl, 1901/1962, p. 146), which excludes every relationship with the “real empiric existence” (Husserl, 1901/1962, p. 147).

The terms of this distinction can be appreciated from an example given by Husserl and that concerns the external perception, that is, the perception of something external to the consciousness. The author refers to the “color sensory moment” (Husserl, 1901/1962, p. 147) related to any perceptive visual phenomenon. It is an experience, as well as the character of the perception act and the “complete perceptive phenomenon of the colorful object” (Husserl, 1901/1962, p. 147). On the other hand, the object itself, as objective thing, with its particular coloration, in spite of perceived, is not an experience nor is in the consciousness. To the color, as object’s property, there correspond an experience, a perceptive phenomenon of color sensation, “the phenomenological color moment, determined qualitatively” (Husserl, 1901/1962, p. 148), and which will be submitted to an “objectifying apprehension” (Husserl, 1901/1962, p. 148). Husserl denunciates the current identification between these two things: the sensation of color and the objective coloration of the object. According to the empiricist epistemology, they would be a same thing considered from two different points of view: the psychological one, which represents the perceived thing as sensation, and the physical, which considers it as object’s property.

Against this naturalist position, Husserl invites us to observe an indubitable and necessary character of the perception: the difference between the red of the object, “seen objectively as uniform” (Husserl, 1901/1962, p. 148) and “the presentation per profiles (Abschattung) of the subjective sensations of color” (Husserl, 1901/1962, p. 148). It implies to consider that, in the variability of its presentations, the color content, the pure sensation data, such as it is given phenomenologically, is apprehended as a single objective meaning.

What is valid here for the color is appropriate for the colorful object as a whole. I see a single and same box, although I handle it for several times and even altering my spatial orientations in relation to it. We experience the consciousness of the identity of the object. A same meaning is apprehended in the diversity of sensorial contents. This consciousness consists in an intentional act whose correlative objective is within the perceived identity. The intentional act is an experience of the consciousness, as well as the perception contents, or presentative sensations. It is worth noticing, however, “the difference between the intentional experiences in which objective intentions are constituted... and the contents that may well serve as material for the acts, but that, they themselves, are not acts” (Husserl, 1901/1962, p. 186-187, highlights by the author). Besides, the experiences “do not appear objectively” (Husserl, 1901/1962, p. 188), that is, they are not seen; on the other side, the objects are perceived, appear, but are not experienced. Here, it can be noticed Husserl’s concern in distinguishing the consciousness from what it is consciousness, in establishing, according to Barbaras’ words (2009), “an ontological difference between the being as thing and the being as consciousness” (p. 47)

The problem of the noncompletion and indetermination of the perceptive donation, with the criticism tenor that it carries to the pretentious fullness of the objects as they appear to the perception, is noticed here only indirectly. The focus of this initial approach to the perception problem is the question of the intentional experiences and their contents. We mention, however, aspects that will be useful further and that put us face to face with what (Barbaras, 2006) considers a conflict between the description and the analysis of the perception in Husserl. Would the dimension of this analysis that configures the intentional act as objectifying act not expose the description of the perception to categories of knowledge, obscuring its specificities? At the same time, would we not be before vestiges of classic sensuality, according as one admits, in this analysis, the idea of perception contents, or sensations?

In Logic Investigation VI, the question of perception per profiles appears amidst the exercise carried out by Husserl to establish the differences between significative intentions and intuitive intentions, upon the description of their fulfillment properties. The significative intentions refer to the relationship between a sign and what is designated by it, whereas the intuitive intentions refer to the phenomena of perception and imagination. Most of the time, any sign has a little to do with what it designates. The perceptive profile of the perceived thing does not appear as sign of the thing in itself. Any sign, in the quality of object, also “appears” in sensible terms, or intuitive, according to Husserl’s vocabulary (1901/1963). But its expressive value depends on another intentional act that leads it to another thing, that is, to the designated object. Concerning the perceptive profile, on the contrary, each face of the perceived thing presents nothing more, nothing less than this same thing, “in person” (Husserl, 1901/1963, p. 77). In the imaginative representation, the object also presents itself under multiple aspects, in “imaginative profiles” (Husserl, 1901/1963, p. 77), despite the object presents itself in image and not bodily. For Husserl, all those intentional modalities configure objectifying acts, as “their fulfillment unity has the character of identification unity and, occasionally, a more restrict character of knowledge unity” (Husserl, 1901/1963, p. 69, highlights by the author).

Let us focus on the characterization of the perceptive donation per profiles. The proper meaning of the perception is “to be apparition of the object itself”, affirms (Husserl, 1901/1963, p. 75), and not the apparition of an image, whose essence is the relationship of similarity with what is seen through it. In the case of the perception, “the thing confirms itself ‘by itself’” (Husserl, 1901/1963, p. 74); one same thing manifests itself in its various aspects. More than that, the object appears only “in perspective and per profile” (Husserl, 1901/1963, p. 75), what means that the confirmation of the object by itself occurs only amid the openness of new horizons of perception. (Husserl, 1901/1963) comments: “The object is not given effectively, what means it is not fully given as it is in itself” (p. 74). The perceived object presents itself amid a number of perceptive possibilities. Therefore, the perception does not configure itself as a “true and authentic presentation of the object in itself” (Husserl, 1901/1963, p. 75). If so, only one perception for each object would be necessary. The perception happens in the fulfillment of multiple perceptive intentions. In the quality of global act, the perception “captures the object itself, precisely on the way of the profile (Abschattung)” (Husserl, 1901/1963, p. 75). The meaning of every perception is, then, an ideal of adequacy with the object itself, which occurs through multiple perceptions related to this single and same object. In spite of the diversity of apparitions, one same thing is seen. Let us turn to a text excerpt of (Husserl, 1901/1963):

It is to it [the object] that the continuous flow of fulfillment or of identification in the continuous succession of perceptions “belonging to the same object” refers. In it, each one of these perceptions is the mix of intentions fulfilled and unfulfilled. What is given in this singular perception as a profile more or less perfect, corresponds, in the object, to the first; to the latter, what is not given yet, therefore, what that, in new perceptions, would accede to an actual and fulfiller presence. And all syntheses of fulfillment of this type distinguish themselves by an ordinary character, precisely as identifications of apparitions of the object itself with other apparitions of the same object (p. 76-77, highlights by the author).

These analyses may be expressed in another way. In the perception, what is seen is the object of the perception, and not the actual content of the perceptive donation, that is, the profile of the perceived object. This observation is also valid with regard to the significative and imaginative institutions, in which the contents of the sign and imaginative profiles present themselves in favor of the designation and of the reproduction by image. But, in the case of the perception, as we already mentioned, the confirmation of the perceived thing occurs in its own presence, which, however, seems not to drain away. It confirms itself as an “ideal of adequacy” (Husserl, 1901/1963, p. 76), which lead us to consider as metaphors only the possibilities to deal with the “fullness of the ‘thing itself’” (Husserl, 1901/1963, p. 86), the intentional progression towards “the adequate presentation of the object of knowledge in itself” (Husserl, 1901/1963, p. 86), and, in a more general manner, the possible “satisfaction” (Husserl, 1901/1963, p. 68) regarding the processes of synthesis of fulfillment of the perceptive intuitions.

The synthesis of the perceptive intention returns, therefore, to the presentation of the thing itself in its perceptive profiles. This logic is assured by the preservation of the transcendence of the object. Moreover, it evidences the strength exerted by the noncompletion of the objects of the perception on the perceptive subject, aspect emphasized by Husserl in posterior works.

From Logical Investigations one highlights, in short, the distinction between the being as thing and the being as consciousness, fundamental ontological differentiation, and a first characterization of the perceptive donation per profiles. We saw that, despite the perception, the consciousness experiences are divided, essentially, into sensorial contents and intentional experiences. The initial description, by Husserl, of the fulfillment of the perceptive intuitive intentions evidenced that the object, to the extent of its transcendence, presents itself through perceptive profiles. We already have here a characterization of the unnecessary insufficiency of the perception.

Noncompletion and movement

In 1907, Husserl dedicates himself to a number of texts directed exclusively to perception. This material was gathered in Thing and space: lectures of 1907 (Husserl, 1989). In this work, Husserl delimits the purpose to study the constitution of the “empiric objectiveness in the inferior experience” (Husserl, 1989, p. 29), that is, the unity of the perceived thing in the perceptive intuition process, considered as primordial form in relation to superior intentional acts. More precisely, the philosopher circumscribes as provisional study field the perception of external things, seen individually as objects.

These investigations remain based on the distinction between the real components and the intentional components of the perception, formulated in terms very similar to the Logical Investigation’s ones. The real contents of perception, or sensations, would be animated with signification through the apprehension. The immanent content would be, then, apprehended as something that appears in its apprehension, and that it itself is not: the object that appears. By the apprehension of the immanent content of the perception, we find the continuous profiling of a color, a texture, a form, so that the objects with their uniform qualities correspond to the felt profile. This distinction keeps Husserl away from the classic confusions between the immanent and the transcendent.

What we would like to highlight, however, from the studies of Thing and space is, firstly, the deepening, by Husserl, of the descriptions and analyses referred to the essential noncompletion of the perception, what leads him to deal with a latent perceptive “field”, multiple and, exactly due to that, motivator of perceptive activity. The philosopher evidences the inseparability of the perception field in relation to the position of the body of the perceptive subject and its kinetic courses. In this sense, he makes important considerations on what he calls “body of the Ego (Ichleib)” (Husserl, 1989, p. 31), second aspect we should focus on. These studies express the connection between the perceptive noncompletion and the movement which characterizes the corporal ego. In detail, one delineates the affective dimension of the perception.

If we stand in front of a house, we see only its facade in a proper manner. Only a limited set of objective determinacies of perception has exposition. It is a matter of, precisely, the visible face of the perceived thing. We affirm, however, to see a house, and not a house’s facade. This is the meaning perceived in a phenomenological way. Posterior explorations may reinforce this meaning, or alter it, in case we are, for instance, at a cinematographic scenario and see that we are only in front of a facade, a simulacrum, although this object still constitutes a unity, with its front, its verso etc. The fact is that, at any rate, “the perception of a whole object does not imply the perception of all its parts and determinacies” (Husserl, 1989, p. 73). Such as it occurs to the perception, the perceived thing has more than which that is given to the apparition, or that appears in the proper meaning. This “more”, Husserl affirms (1989, p. 74), “is deprived from expository contents that specially belong to it”, although it is understood in the perception, even without properly acceding to the exposition. Therefore, Husserl affirms that the global apprehension and the global apparition of the perception are divided into proper apparition, whose correlate is the face of the object properly perceived, and the improper apparition, appendix of the proper apparition and whose correlate is exactly the rest of the object. About the improper apparition, the philosopher writes: “It does not expose anything, although it turns its object into conscious in a certain way” (Husserl, 1989, p. 74). This consciousness of the object in the improper apparition is, then, empty in terms of expository contents, but not in what refers to the perceptive correlate. If only “the exposed is seen, is given ‘intuitively’” (Husserl, 1989, p. 74), the improper apparition is inseparably connected to it in the unity of the apparition.

Every perception extends, then, beyond what appears in the proper apparition. This excess of the perceived thing in relation to itself is co-seen in the proper apparition. The unilaterality of the external perception, which give us only a “relief of noncompletion” (Husserl, 1989, p. 75) in every moment of the exposition, expresses a “radical noncompletion”, affirms (Husserl, 1989, p. 75). We never leave the state of continuous synthesis that conjugates the seen thing and the unseen thing in every moment of exposition of things. It is a question of, with effect, an “endless synthesis, never closed, never finished” (Husserl, 1989, p. 167). It is worth mentioning that this noncompletion never implies perception emptiness, but, exactly, “a flow of unlimited continuity, an unlimited kingdom of open possibilities” (Husserl, 1989, p. 170), and that are already counted in the perceptive process.

In fact, the perception never occurs in an unchanged way. Either in function of the movement of the perceived things or in function of our own movements, since the simpler ones, as to blink the eyes and the variations of the position of the head, to the more evocative ones, which are directed to the profundity of the objects and the world, what we have is “continually any different thing again” (Husserl, 1989, p. 129). The moments of proper apparitions occur in successions marked by minimal differences, so that there is a continuity of profiles, which become each other without stopping. The course of the multiplicity of profiles of any object is ruled by a “continuous unity of meaning” (Husserl, 1989, p. 131), in which the object in flesh and blood, the object that is-there-in-person, presents itself as identity in the multiplicity and in the continuity of perspective profiles.

The reference to a temporal nature of the perceptive phenomenon is explicit. (Husserl, 1989, p. 89) speaks about the “temporal perceptive form”, that is, an unity that presents itself as “first element” (Husserl, 1989, p. 89) in the game of phases and profiles that distinguish themselves continually. Every profile resends to the next receptive phase, as well as to the precedent one, equally active in the perceptive unity. The form to which Husserl refers is rightly the permanent synthesis of the past and the future profiles in a kind of present unity, unity in perpetual transition. It is worth highlighting, however, the inextricable connection of this temporal “perceptive synthesis” with the movement, especially the movement of the body proper. It is through the differential of the movement that one determines the direction of the perceptive course.

Every perceived thing is within an environment of things that is co-apprehended. (Husserl, 1989, p. 250) refers to a “peripheral zone of objects” that may appear or stay invisible. It is a matter of perceived things even without acceding to the exposition, things that, as the unseen faces of an object, are co-seen. The Ego, more precisely, the body of the Ego, belongs, in a privileged way, to this environment, or perception field, plenty of present things, although not necessarily properly given. (Husserl, 1989, p. 107) writes:

It [the body proper] is as point of permanent relation in reference to which all references of space appear, it determines the phenomenal right and left, the front and the verso, the phenomenal high and low. It occupies, then, an exceptional position in the world of things that appear perceptively (Husserl, 1989, p. 107).

One certifies, therefore, the central position of the “egoic body” (Lavigne, 1989, p. 449), being that polarizes the appearance of anything amid the global environment. The body is the term implicit in every perception and that determines it in such and such way.

According to Husserl’s indications (1989), this should be considered the properly subjective dimension of the perception. “The face is something subjective, is ‘my perceptive apparition’, that belongs to me, once I assume such and such position in relation to the thing”, the philosopher af firms (Husserl, 1989, p. 182, highlights by us). At the same time, the face is something objective, due to its belonging to the thing, which appears through the profile. It is in the profile that the object accedes to the donation as something in flesh and blood.

The “body of flesh” is also a thing, “physical thing as it does not matter which other” (Husserl, 1989, p. 197), with defined space and specific and fulfiller determinacies in relation to intuitive acts of perception, proper and external. On the other hand, this thing is “body-proper (Leib)”, “support of the Ego” (Husserl, 1989, p. 198).

If I touch my right hand with my left hand, the apparition of the left hand and (that) of the right hand integrate themselves reciprocally with the tactile and kinesthetic sensations, one moving upon the other in such and such way. But, at the same time, that is, by conversion of the apprehension, the be in motion appears in another meaning, which is convenient only to the body-proper and, in general, the same groups of sensations that have objectifying function are apprehended, by conversion of the attention and of the apprehension, in a subjectifying way, and, one admits, as something that the members of the body which appear in the objectifying function “have”, located in themselves. (Husserl, 1989, p. 198).

In other words, the “body-Ego (Ichleib)” (Husserl, 1989, p. 198), distinguishes itself from any other physical thing by “‘subjective’ determinacies” (Husserl, 1989, p. 199), such as the kinesthetic sensations, the tactile sensations and the feelings of pain and pleasure. In Thing and space, Husserl’s analyses on the body proper are forwarded to what refers to the spatial perception: the interlacement of the constitution of the physical thinghood and of the constitution of a body-Ego. In this specific context, the philosopher is interested in evidencing the proper relation that co-appears between the perceived thing and the self of the perception. Husserl speaks about sensations with objectifying function and sensations with function of apparition motivation. The first admit, in their turn, two ways of apprehension: the one related to the appearance of the psychical thing and the one related to the appearance of the sentient body, support of various sensations. The visual and tactile sensations offer profiles of the spatiality, but they are not enough to become the constitution of the spatiality possible. The sensations with function of motivation of the apparition refer to the kinetic, or kinesthetic, sensations. They do not have expository function in relation to the physical things, but are indispensable for the continuous expositions to be possible. Said in other words, they make the exposition possible, without exposition of themselves. Moreover, they participate of the subjectifying apprehension, that is, of the appearance of the body as sentient, even if as term co-inscribed in the perceptive field, fundamental and unperceived “point-of-relation” (Husserl, 1989, p. 271) of the perception.

The relation between the visual field and the kinesthetic courses is conditioning. Every kinesthetic alteration (C), since the simpler oculomotor alteration, conditions changes in the visual images (i). According to (Husserl, 1989), between the terms C and i a relation of co-belonging is established: one’s position motivates the other’s in such a way that one belongs to the other, forms a unit with it in a particular manner. However, the kinaesthesias are described as “circumstances” (Husserl, 1989, p. 219) of the perceptive profiles. In every alteration of the circumstances, in every new direction or movement, an alteration of the perceptive profiles occurs. The consciousness of perceptive unity crosses only the apparitions, or profiles, and not the kinesthetic sensations. But if the course of the succession of images, where one image is resent to the other, is crossed by the intentionality of unity, this intentionality is not awakened except in such and such kinetic circumstances.

The temporal and intentional unity of the perceptive succession is, then, motivated by kinetic circumstances. Focusing on the perpetual noncompletion of the perceptive field, could we not affirm that the opposite is also true? (Husserl, 1989) evokes in several passages of his lectures dynamics of interest and satisfaction involved in the perception. The interest in anything is related to the “privilege of the explicit donation” (Husserl 1989, p. 235), of the best angles and perspectives. Although the perceived thing and field never donate themselves completely, shall no consciousness of donation be treated as finished, once it always resends “beyond itself” (Husserl, 1989, p. 136), it is possible deal with circumstances of increase and reduction, of complementation or impoverishment of the perceptive donation. “In general, the incomplete is not enough for us when we once enjoyed the complete, something is missing in it, it resends to the complete, which, if experienced, would satisfy us”, affirms (Husserl, 1989, p. 136). Here, there are affective and desiring dynamics, which connect the perpetual absence of the totality with the dynamics of ignition of the intentionality and movement of the subject of the perception. (Montavont, 1999; Barbaras, 2006).

Matter and form

We privileged, so far, a more detailed reading of the perception issue in Logical Investigations and Thing and space. We gained with that the possibility to emphasize fundamental themes regarding the perception per profiles and, at the same time, to deepen them properly. We saw that a unified thing is seen through various sensible properties, different presentations, or profiles. The excess referred to every phenomenal donation is part constitutive of the perceived thing in the quality of co-seen aspect in the exposed profile. The improper apparition of the invisible parts of an object occurs as reference to aspects to be perceived properly, evidencing the evolutionary character of the perception and its relation with the kinetic circumstances, concurrently motivating and motivated in relation to the noncompletion of the perceptive field. In this sense, we also highlight the co-appearance of the relationship between the perceived object and the sentient body, which establishes the pointed condition of the perception. Henceforth, we would like to appreciate, as a mean of complement, certain prolongations of these themes in subsequent texts of Husserl.

In Ideas I ((Husserl, 1931/2001), which is considered the first great work of maturity of Husserl, the structural relation between the empty sight and the intuitive fulfillment divides space with an intentionality noetic-noematic structures theory. This theory starts to be delineated in the moment ((Husserl, 1931/2001) reconfigures the duality, always present in his texts, between sensation data and apprehension acts from the concepts of sensual hylé (matter) and intentional morphé (form). According to Husserl, the sensual matter, that is, the sensation experiences, should be shaped by intentional experiences. These constitute the noetic moments of the consciousness, those that animate the matter and configure the meaning donation itself. In the case of sensible perception of a tree, it is contemplated as “consciousness unity” ((Husserl, 1931/2001, p. 336), despite the “different ways to appear” ((Husserl, 1931/2001, p. 336) due to, for instance, the wind, which agitate its leaves, and to our variations of spatial and corporal position. All this “multiplicity of alterations” ((Husserl, 1931/2001, p. 336) figures as a mean of matter of the noetic activity. The color of the stem and of the top of the tree, or the tree’s complete physiognomy, accedes to the consciousness as “the same”. The noematic, or objective, color and physiognomy show themselves in the hyletic moment of the experience. The noema is, thus, the univocal meaning of the perception, which, in the hyletic moment, presents itself as multiple. The noema is not part of what Husserl calls real components of the perception, category reserved to the material components, or sensible, and to the noetic ones. These experiences found the transcendental constitution of what that accedes to the consciousness as noema. If the noema participates of the order of the experiences, it is in a different way from the real constituents of experiences. The perceptive noema is what is given to the consciousness, the perceived thing as it presents itself to the consciousness in a particular act of perception. It means that the perceptive noema should not be confounded with a part of the perceptive act, the real component of the act. The noema represents the convergence of the perceptive multiplicity (Gurwitsch, 1957). If the noema differs from the elements which compound it, it does not confuse itself with the natural object either. The perceived thing, in the quality of noema, is the meaning of the perception. In the example given earlier, which referred to a house’s facade or to a facade representing a house at a cinematographic scenario, we have two noemas, two meanings of perception, which occur, equally, through a multiplicity of perceptive acts. ((Husserl, 1931/2001) comments, in this direction, that any object, the “pure and simple” tree (p. 308), may burn, but not the meaning of the perception.

In the manuscripts gathered in Concerning Passive Synthesis, set of texts elaborated between 1918 and 1926, (Husserl, 1966/1998) refers to what in Ideas I was denominated hyletic moment of the perception and noema in terms closer than what we consider, with (Barbaras, 2006), a description of perception. This reconfiguration does not deviate us, however, from what (Patočka, 2002) defines as a subjectivist record of the transcendental phenomenology. Hussel affirms that, through a conversion of our attention, naturally absorbed by our focus on things, we are capable to discover that, in every external perception, “the perceptive images, the ways of apparition, the aspects of the object do not stop changing” (Husserl, 1966/1998, p. 49, highlights by us). It is a matter of, in this case, constant change in the “effective experience of the perception” (Husserl, 1966/1998, p. 49), what in Ideas I is referred to as real component of the perception. In spite of the fact of being conscious, what is confirmed by its accessibility from the conversion of our attention, this change is, somehow, hidden. What is hidden is the content of apparition pertaining to each perception, that is, the experiences, or “phases of the continuous unitary perception” (Husserl, 1966/1998, p. 50). What appears is the object itself.

In the diversity of apparitions, or images, a single and same tree appears. This “supposed sameness” (Husserl, 1966/1998, p. 50) is the objective meaning of the experiences. Husserl admits the obscurity of the meaning concept. “He meaning is, before everything, introduced as intentional object, the seen thing as such”, explains the philosopher (Husserl, 1966/1998, p. 52). The transcendent is, thus, the objective meaning, which that appears. The apparition, that is, the image or the experience, does not have place in the space, in the space in which it appears. “The apparition of the house is not beside the house”, Husserl affirms (1928/1964, p. 08-09). Should the natural existence of a perceived object be considered, or should it be left in state of suspension, in the terms of the phenomenological reduction, any act of perception corresponds to a perceptive meaning, or noema, what means that the natural objects are “seen as existent” (Gurwitsch, 1957, p. 151). In the case of the perception, the perceived meaning occurs as thing present in flesh and blood.

Perception and affection

Concerning the description of the perception, we would like to highlight a last element, the question of the intentional horizons, present in the manuscripts on the passive synthesis. The theme is not strange to the formulations present in Thing and space, once it deals with the relations between what is properly perceived and what is properly unperceived. The treatment given to this relationship from the idea of intentional horizon reinforces, however, the importance constitutive of the unperceived thing, of the absence that matters. Furthermore, this dimension of invisibility is explicitly connected to what we characterize a little earlier as affective dimension of the perception.

(Husserl, 1966/1998) starts from the following observation: “The external perception is a permanent pretension to perform something that, due to its essence, it does not have conditions to perform” (p. 95). One attests, thus, the matrix character of absence, or privation, which moves the perception. In every apparition, there correspond various invisible things, or “numerous compounds of possible visibility” (Husserl, 1966/1998, p. 96). The perceived thing, for instance, a table, is not restrict to its side properly seen; it comprehends what would be perceived in other perceptions. The consciousness of an object is only possible in the form of an effective consciousness and of a co-consciousness, the philosopher affirms. By co-consciousness is necessary to understand the fact that the invisible sides are “‘co-seen as co-present by the consciousness” (Husserl, 1966/1998, p. 96). From a noetic point of view, it is a question of understanding that the effective expositions are adjusted to empty indications, referred to new possible perceptions. From a noematic perspective, ones attests the perception per profiles, that is, the fact that the given sides resend to the not given ones in the form of “not-given of a same object” (Husserl, 1966/1998, p. 96). These verifications result in the following Husserl’s formulation (1966/1998): “Everything that appears properly is not appearing-of-thing except because it is involved and impregnated by an intentional empty horizon, except because it is surrounded by an empty halo according to the apparition” (p. 97). This emptiness, the philosopher observes, should not get confused with a nothing. It is a matter, in fact, of an “emptiness to be filled” (Husserl, 1966/1998, p. 97), of a “determinable indetermination” (Husserl, 1966/1998, p. 97), which also, in the quality of intentional horizon, “prescribes a rule to the passage of new updating apparitions” (Husserl, 1966/1998, p. 97). The aspects, or profiles, are, thus, apparition-of in function of its intentional horizons.

The system of horizons configures a system of remittances around a core of apparition. In its interior, Husserl affirms (1966/1998), the perceived thing “call us in a certain manner” (p. 97). To describe this calling, the philosopher adopts the perspective of the perceived thing and writes:

there is still more to see, rotate me, thus, from all sides and look at me, come closer, open me, dissect me. Always one more time, look around and rotate me from all sides. Then, you will learn to know me in everything I am, in all my superficial properties, my internal sensible properties etc. (Husserl, 1966/1998, p. 97).

It is already at stake, here, what Husserl calls affection phenomenon, and concerns, exactly, “the specific attraction that a conscious object exerts on the ego” (Husserl, 1966/1998, p. 217). According to the author, this attraction turns into “the aspiration to the intuition that donates in person, which uncovers more and more the self of the object” (Husserl, 1966/1998, p. 217). It is worth reinforcing the connection between the perceptive affection and the movement of the percipient subject. The perceptive calling has a value intrinsically motor, relative to the approximation, to the exploration and the handling of the thing, even if only as a means of possibility, configuring a carnal consciousness.

In relation to the system of horizons, it is necessary to call attention to the distinction that Husserl makes between interior horizon and exterior horizon of each apparition, or profile. This distinction is more clearly presented in First philosophy (Husserl, 1959/1972), work that gathers courses given between 1923 and 1924. Starting from the verification that we never have a perceived thing without consciousness of horizon, the interior horizon refers to the invisible faces, internal or reverse, of the object. Not less necessary, Husserl writes, it is the non-intuitive external horizon. It is a matter of the “environment of spatial things” (Husserl, 1959/1972, p. 204) in which the perceived object is. The external horizon cannot be defined as an unperceived perceptive field where the object is revealed. It is composed by a “dominion of intuitiveness still perceptible” (Husserl, 1959/1972, p. 204) and by a “non-intuitive empty horizon that continues it” (Husserl, 1959/1972, p. 204). This spatial field, empty horizon, is not related only to prefigured moments, immediately accessible. Strictly speaking, Husserl affirms, the empty horizon embraces the whole world, that is, “an infinite horizon of possible experience” (Husserl, 1959/1972, p. 206)³. The affections that derivate from it configure a consciousness of object, even that its way of validity is based on the supposition, on the probability or on the recollection, in the case of a known horizon.

Let us return to the texts on the passive synthesis. Remaining within the limits of the sphere of the impressive thing, (Husserl, 1966/1998) investigates the functions of the affectivity from the field of horizons. “Before everything”, affirms, “the affection presupposes the detachment” (Husserl, 1966/1998, p. 217). Detached objects, “that effectively affect” (Husserl, 1966/1998, p. 217), are constituted as explicit objects, whereas those that, from the affective point of view, did not reach, in a certain circumstance, an excitation, or power, able to rouse the “ego-pole”, are constituted as implicit objects. It is a question, Husserl comments, of detachment by “fusion by contrast” (Husserl, 1966/1998, p. 217). If the most originary affection is that which occurs in the impressive present, the contrast should be characterized as “the most originary condition of the affection”, the philosopher writes (Husserl, 1966/1998, p. 217). The affections, however, propagate. They turn into an attention act, of acquisition of knowledge or of explanation; in short, they stand in the form of a thematic interest. The example referred to by (Husserl, 1966/1998) is the following:

simultaneously to the noises, as the vehicles traffic, to the sounds of a song, to the odors released etc., individual and well detached colorful figures affect us. Everything occurs at same time; but on this occasion, only the song matters, to the extent that we are, in the listening, focused exclusively on it (p. 218).

To find the rules of the detachment in the configuration of the visual, tactile, auditory field etc., is the task that is imposed. One of the aspects exposed by Husserl in the conduction of these investigations is that the perceptive unities may be given, besides the picture of the attention, from a “retrospective approach on the horizons of the past of an attention sphere” (Husserl, 1966/1998, p. 221). Husserl admits, here, given unities without paying attention to them, for they affect the subject in a “minimal level” (Husserl, 1966/1998, p. 221), remaining forgotten. It would be, then, necessary to go, beyond the sphere of the live present, to the sphere of the obliviousness and to study the conditions of the reproductive awakening. Husserl acknowledges that this theme has already a “famous tittle”, that one of unconscious. Therefore, it would be a question of performing an unconscious phenomenology.

Taking into consideration the developments of (Merleau-Ponty, 1945, 1964/2006, 2003) in relation to the dialectic of the perceived thing, one can affirm that the dimensions of absence and of invisibility of the perception, approached in the limits of the sphere of the impressive present, lead to an idea of unconscious as unperceived thing, to which that, invisible and susceptible of becoming perceived, is, right now, integrated to the perception. Referring to the idea of unconscious from the horizons structure, (Merleau-Ponty, 2003) sustains the efficacy of the not recognized perception, of the perception of the absence, which cannot be understood as lack of perception. And reinforces the Husserlian concept of affection when defining the perception as “insertion into a field” (Merleau-Ponty, 2003, p. 265), “experience of a co-functioning” (Merleau-Ponty, 2003, p. 265), where one cannot affirm who gives and who receives, whether the subject of the perception or the perceived world, and in which a perception lead to others.

Final considerations

We analyzed the description of the perception in Husserl, which emphasizes the perceptive donation per profiles. We tried to evidence, amid the Husserlian studies of perception, the convergence of the intentional process of the perceptive consciousness, its nature of corporeal subject of the movement, and the noncompletion and the latency of the perceptive field. The sensible field, space of action, presented itself as the motive of the perceptive act, configuring, on the track of the noncompletion of the space and of the situation occupied by the subject of the perception, part of a means of affection. An element of detach in the constitution of the evolutionary dynamics of the perception is the perceptive function of the unseen, either in relation to the hidden faces of the object or to the things and landscapes that surround it.

The analytic aspects of the philosophy of the perception in Husserl do not keep us away from this descriptive circle. The consciousness chain, with its hyletic and noetic moments, acquires signification in the perspective noncompletion. Would it be possible to characterize them without invoking the noema, that is, the meaning of the perception, its necessary transcendence, whose nature is to avoid the complete exposition? The descriptive concepts of internal and external horizons of the perceived thing show this insufficiency of perception, which represents, at the same time, the excess. It, by itself, is an element of affection, once the perceptive course occurs through the participation of a carnal consciousness, that is, of a subject of the movement of perception able to explore the world, or the perceptive field. The analysis of the noetic-noematic structure is connected to the characterization of a corporeal subject.

One notes the possibilities that the thickness of the phenomenal field, as defined by Husserl, have in the establishment of descriptive categories referred to the perceptive manifestation, what includes definitions on the subject of the perception. By the very structure of the manifestation, any subjective category should mirror the movement of the subject outside itself, in the excessive field of the perception.

Referências

• Barbaras, R. (2006). Le désir et la distance: introduction à une phénoméologie de la perception (2a ed.). Paris, France: Vrin.
• Barbaras, R. (2009). La perception: essai sur le sensible (2a ed.). Paris, France: Vrin.
• Berthoz, A. & Petit, J-L. (2006). Phénoménologie et physiologie de l’action. Paris, France: Odile Jacob.
• English, J. (2002). Le vocabulaire de Husserl. Paris, France: Ellipses.
• Granel, G. (1968). Le sens du temps et de la perception chez E. Husserl. Paris, France: Gallimard.
• Gurwitsch, A. (1957). Théorie du champ de la conscience. Bruges, Belgique: Desclée de Brouwer.
• Husserl, E. (1962). Recherches logiques, tome second, deuxième partie: recherches pour la phénoménologie et la théorie de la connaissance (H. Élie, L. Kelkel, & R. Schérer, trads.). Paris, France: PUF. (Trabalho original publicado em 1901)
• Husserl, E. (1963). Recherches logiques, tome troisième: éléments d’une élucidation phénoménologique de la connaissance. Paris, France: PUF. (Trabalho original publicado em 1901)
• Husserl, E. (1972). Philosophie première, deuxième partie: théorie de la réduction phénoménologique. Paris, France: PUF. (Trabalho original publicado em 1959)
• Husserl. E. (1989). Chose et espace: leçons de 1907 (J-F Lavigne, trad.). Paris, France: PUF.
• Husserl, E. (1998). De la synthèse passive: logique transcendantale et constitutions originaires. (B. Bégout & J. Kessler, trads.). Grenoble, France: Jérôme Millon.
• Husserl, E. (2001). Méditations cartésiennes: introduction à la phénoménologie. Paris, França: Vrin. (Trabalho original publicado em 1931)
• Husserl, E. (2002). Leçons pour une phénoménologie de la conscience intime du temps (H. Dussort, trad.). Paris, France: PUF . (Trabalho original publicado em 1928)
• Husserl, E. (2004). La crise des sciences européennes et la phénoménologie transcendantale. Paris, França: Gallimard. (Trabalho original publicado em 1954)
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• 1
  Information on financing: São Paulo Research Foundation – FAPESP Procedure 2013/11017-1.

• 2
  Our primary literature is constituted of versions translated from the originals. We appealed to Husserl’s works French versions, since they are inserted into a tradition of translation of the philosopher, reason why they present a very unified linguistic system. The French translators of the works, among them, G. Granel, A. Kelkel, P. Ricoeur and N. Depraz, are well-known by critique works dedicated to Husserl, and present, in the editions for what they are responsible, important comments and clarifications related to the work of translation, as well as on main conceptual aspects of the Husserlian philosophy. Due to these reasons, we took those versions of Husserl’s works as object of study susceptible of rigorous analyses and faithful to the content of the originals.

• 3
  In his First philosophy, (Husserl, 1959/1972) admits to perform a kind of phenomenological abstraction by limiting his investigations, most of the time, to the proper transcendental subjectivity, that is, without taking into account the foreign subjectivities. In the 53rd lesson of the book, he broaches the issue of the intersubjectivity, but without dealing with it from the questions referred to the perception. In The crisis of European sciences and transcendental phenomenology, ((Husserl, 1954/2004), by revisiting the question of the perceptive horizons, speaks about the “world as universal horizon, common to the whole humankind” (p.186) and about the connection of perceptive experiences with someone else, whose functioning would be “analogous to the connection of the particular successions of experience” (p.186). In Cartesian meditations, (Husserl, 1931/2001) deals with an intentional pairing when referring to the association with the other’s experience. We have in the subjectivity, in short, an important dimension of the perceptive donation per profiles, but that, due to the limits of space, we won’t broach in the current paper.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Sep-Dec 2016

History

• Received
  06 Mar 2015
• Reviewed
  19 June 2015
• Accepted
  21 Dec 2015