Phenomenal Reality and Psychology of Perception in Metzger

Metzger (1941: 10, 25) recognizes Husserl’s phenomenological contribution to a science of perception that prevents common-sense assumptions as well as extraneous philosophical concepts and scientific findings from defining its primitives. If the latter were drawn from the known physical and physiological properties of stimulation, the research could be limited solely to those features that are construed in physical or physiological terms. Indeed, perception is of­ten explained by constructs that lack a phenomenological justification, as the “optical-kinetic sensations” or von Helmholtz’s “innervation feelings.” Metzger maintains that this interpretation of the science of perception derives from “the prejudice of eleatic-rationalism” (1941: 9). It prescribes that something is an object of scientific investigation only if it is reducible to the established knowledge of physics and physiology and if it is not in conflict with the logi­cal, ontological commitments of accepted philosophic or scientific theories. According to this prejudice, phenomena are treated as hypothetical constructs, whose validity depends on the likelihood that they correspond to physical and physiological posits, while appearances become unobservable subjective experiences. Metzger denounces the risk of “psychologism” for the science that does not recognize the independence of perception and the autonomy of its laws, which is the same as Husserl coined for logic.

Like Hering and Husserl, who assume the direct meaning of perceptual ref­erence and the consistency of perception in the world of naive experience, Metzger remarks that ordinary experience attests that perception refers to the outer world rather than to unattainable physical stimulation, which is instead the object of physics. Regardless of the existent thing they may display as refer­ent, appearances can be treated as immediate data of experience from which a specifiable set of features and structure can be drawn. The epistemological standpoint has to be changed to allow

accepting straightforwardly the “immediate datum” just as it is, even though it appears unusual, unexpected, illogical or meaningless, and even though it contradicts undisputable axioms or familiar habits of thought. Letting things speak for themselves and be not misled by what is known or learned, by what is obvious, by the implicit knowledge, the demands of logic, the stereotypes of language, the poverty of our vo­cabulary. Approaching nature with reverence and love, reserving, if any, doubt and mistrust for the premises and concepts of the long-established attempt at understanding the world of data. (1941: 12; translation from German is mine.)

Metzger claims that this attitude is fundamental to discovering the proper­ties belonging to the appearances themselves that are preserved in-between perceivers and across the varying circumstances of perception. These prop­erties also bestow upon appearances the epistemological character of being evident and ascertainable, thus making them suitable to provide access to the external world. Accordingly, the science of perception deals with the features and structures of appearances that let the reality of the surrounding environ­ment emerge as something that is manifested as existing independently of perception. Contrary to the eleatic-rationalist prejudice, Metzger holds that perception builds reality at the experiential level, which is considered the first fundamental meaning of the concept of reality.

Metzger maintains that other meanings of the concept of reality can be defined once this new attitude of the science of perception has put long- established oppositions into question. It is undisputable that reality cannot be restricted to what is perceivable even for the things that fall into perception. These have material properties that are the objects of natural sciences and are studied by means of theoretical and experimental constructs. Nevertheless, Metzger claims that the results of the science of perception play an important role in the scientific definition of the material nature. The objects of natural sciences cannot be met in direct experience, but this does not preclude that some states in this “meta-empirical” world are “homologous” to the perceptual world at least on an environmental scale (1941: 18). Hence some features among those that are found to have an unquestionable and ascertainable character might contribute to interpreting the constructs as real physical constituents of things. The second meaning of the concept of reality derives from this co­operation between sciences. It consists in the constructs that exhibit “simple and constant connections” with the reliable and robust features of perceptual reality. The other meaning of reality derives from the phenomenal value that appearances in the widest sense acquire in direct experience through their mode of presentation and mutual connection. In this sense this definition of meaning is a contribution to a scientific theory of experience as well as to a neutral classification of the possible phenomena of the science of perception.

Metzger puts forth the fundamental distinction between what is “encoun­tered” and what is merely represented through appearances. Something is encountered if it appears to be forced upon subjects in the world of direct ex­perience, here and now, and if it is capable of bringing about effects on the subjects. Things, events, processes and actions, but also sensations of pain or sensory hallucinations, count as “encountered.” Yet the subjects also perceive the distinct degrees of reality of what appears outside or inside them. The first case regards visual perception. The things, with their localization, articulation, relations with one another as well as the functional connections between them and the environment are encountered as phenomenal constituents of reality. The things have a more certain degree of reality than the change of color or lightness due to the environmental illumination. However, perceivers distin­guish the appearances of things, events and changes in the perceptual scene from the appearance of nothing, like the indeterminate ground of figures, of emptiness, of darkness, of what is momentarily out of sight, which nonethe­less counts as immediate data of experience. Moreover, subjects distinguish between what is really or “apparently” encountered like shadows, light spots, and mirror and photographic images. Instead, expressive or “tertiary” qualities, functional and axiological values are perceived as really embedded in things, events and actions. Metzger remarks that being “real” and “apparent” are phe­nomenal characteristics that arise from what is encountered depending on the behaviour of and connections among appearances.

Unlike what appears in perception, regardless of being perceived as real or “apparent,” something is merely represented if it is presented through appear­ances that display something else through and beyond that which is referred to. Ideas, thoughts, memory images, assumptions, daydreams, expectations and plans all count as phenomena of the mind rather than of the surrounding world. Even in this case, subjects are able to distinguish between degrees of reality: a conjecture is less real than memories but also more real than figment.

Metzger suggests that the domain of perception science is extracted from a collection of possible encountered appearances. The experimental study of appearances on such neutral theoretical grounds makes it possible to build the criteria to define what it is to be an object of perception. Since, for exam­ple, emptiness is an encountered appearance, this definition has to be broad enough to cover more than the appearances of a material that occupies a place or fills a container. Metzger suggests that the necessary condition of the defini­tion be phenomenal unity. Unitary appearances are segregated from others by their internal qualitative coherence within a bounded region of the field with respect to the adjacent regions that are filled by heterogeneous qualities.

However, this definition is not yet sufficient. In fact, occluded surfaces are perceived even though they are not actually as visible as the occluding ones. Appearances admit the relation of completion, according to which phenom­enal unities are perceived to continue behind the occluder along any direc­tion of visual space and across time, provided that the continuity is granted by appropriate perceivable conditions. The completion is asymmetrical. Metzger remarks, for example, that the convex surface of a spoon appears also as a closed ovoid solid body, while the frontal view of an egg surface never appears as the convex surface of a spoon. Thus the aim of the science of perception is to design experimental conditions and build theories about the bona fide fea­tures like those needed for completion for the necessary and sufficient defini­tion of perceptual objects. Furthermore, the specification of the phenomenal properties, relations and frames of reference helps explain the naive episte­mological characteristics and the nature of all the appearances subjects find in direct experience.

Source: Calì Carmelo (2017), Phenomenology of Perception: Theories and Experimental Evidence, Brill.