Lightness and Brightness and Other Confusions

MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY 20 proceeds in the same direction. He widens, defines
and reconstructs the concept of the world of meanings that Heidegger
tries to describe with his concept being-in-the-world (Heidegger 1986, p 313).
To human beings perception is the direct access to the world. We exist in the
world before being able to reflect upon it. The human world is created in
interaction and communication between the body and the surrounding world,
and knowledge must be constituted as interplay with the world. Merleau-
Ponty wants to show that I think of necessity must be based upon I perceive –
percipio precedes cogito. (Merleau-Ponty 2002, pp 250–252). He describes
the coherence of consciousness and nature: the perceived world establishes
the development of the human and social world, which forms a significant
connected whole of cultural, social and political contents and expressions. It
can change and be reinterpreted, but can never totally be taken in or controlled
by the individual. It is implicitly present in all perceptions. (Merleau-
Ponty 2002, p 403–408).
KARL POPPER 21 in a similar way describes the human and social world with
what he calls World 3, the content of which is the totality of thoughts, theories
and formulations in culture: scientific theories, poetry, art, etc. (Popper
1997, p 61). According to Popper, World 3 has a (more or less) independent
existence of established tradition of objective knowledge that cannot easily be
influenced by individuals. (Popper’s World 1 and World 2 describe direct
perception of the world and a personal inner world respectively). (Popper
1997, p 62).
To Descartes and Locke objects are entirely objects and consciousness entirely
consciousness, and the surrounding world, in principle, what it appears
to be. Merleau-Ponty (and Popper) present more ambivalent relations between
human consciousness and the external world; to man the world is
neither entirely nature nor entirely consciousness. None of them outweighs
the other: neither nature (nor culture), nor consciousness. (Merleau-Ponty
2002, pp 96–98).
From a scientific perspective and without any connection to philosophical
considerations Arne Valberg points out that many properties that we normally
attribute to the external world (like contrasts, movement and depth)
rely heavily on perception. In the light of these facts he finds it understandable
that there are philosophers regarding all vision as an illusion. He also
remarks that it is almost impossible to distinguish between ‘neural’ and ‘cognitive’
levels of perceptual patterns (Valberg 2005, p 28); vision is even to a
natural scientist as Valberg (as to Merleau-Ponty) neither entirely nature nor
entirely consciousness. What Merleau-Ponty, from a philosophical perspective,
and Valberg, from a scientific point of view, claim is that human experi-
20
French philosopher, 1908–1961
21
Austrian-British philosopher, 1902–1994
21