The Self as Spatial Part in Phenomenology: Meaning and Relations in Space

Kohler (1938) argues that physical and phenomenal space must be distin­guished from the epistemological standpoint without being committed either to ontological dualism, which admits physical and psychic space as entities existing in the material and the mental domains, or to phenomenalist monism, which reduces every spatial entity to the numerically identical sensation each subject has on a given occasion. Ontological dualism risks multiplying entities on the grounds of the terminological distinction between words like “inside” and “outside,” for example in sentences like “the psychic space inside the sub­ject” or “the physical space outside the subjects,” whose meaning is not clear. Phenomenalist monism reduces the space to the property that the appearance of a single subject has, in the sense that space is numerically the same thing as what is sensed by the subject that sees things spatially. However, this account cannot explain why distinct subjects see the same space, unless one turns to a sort of phenomenalist causal theory of perception.

Kohler claims that phenomenology gives a correct account of space per­ception from an epistemological standpoint. Appearances have an immediate localization in a field, or rather in many sensory fields that yet are connected to one another, whose extension is a direct and positive content of experience. In the extended phenomenal space there are appearances of both the things and the self. The self consists in that region of phenomenal space in which a systematic coupling of visual and tactile appearances with the proprioceptive field is experienced (1929b). The self is the “name” for the proprioceptive states and events that bring about the systematic changes of these appearances. The appearances that instead show a relative independence of these changes con­stitute the perceivable things and state of affairs, which are segregated from the self. The localization of things and all such relations as being outside, in­side, next to, far from, above, under, in front of, behind and so forth derive their meaning from the phenomenal system of positions, distances and orientations that assume a value also with reference to the self that is perceptually segre­gated from it. In this sense, it is true that perceivable things and qualities in space surround the self and there is no phenomenological reason to assume that phenomenal space is a psychic entity existing inside the subject’s mind.

Kohler remarks that this claim cannot deny that appearances as well as perceptual space are the end of a chain of physiological processes taking place in the nervous system. Yet the account of phenomenal space based on this physiological knowledge is induced to identify the starting physical and physiological point of such a chain with the phenomenal end of it. In this framework it is sound to claim that perceptual space is derived in reality from the localization and relations holding in the nervous system between its pe­ripheral or central units and processes. Their apparent sense of being outside of subjects would be due to the psychic projection of them on the external physical world. Kohler raises two objections to this account. Firstly, it requires the construct of projection that has no immanent spatial meaning (hence, this criticism holds against von Helmholtz’s theory but not against Brentano’s phe­nomenological construal of this term). Secondly, it rests on the equivocal use of words. When we say that an object is in front of us, “us” denotes the self, namely a phenomenal object that occupies a place in the phenomenal space like other perceived things. It does not denote the organism in the physiologi­cal or biological sense. Unlike the perceivable body of the self, the anatomical and physiological bearer of the self does not appear anywhere in phenomenal space. Likewise, the dependence of perception on the physiological processes in the biological body is not a perceptual fact. No one sees a thing or hears a sound in relation to her brain or her physical organism. For this reason, one may report localizing perceptual objects by means of sentences like: “Just now I heard a rustling sound in the bushes over there.” The common localization of the self and the things in phenomenal space is also the condition for the contingent discrepancies and errors, for instance when one is wrong in point­ing to a visual thing or localizing a sound source. Otherwise the notion of error would not make any sense. There would be no common grounds for compar­ing the alternative localizations and making a reasonable decision, because they would be either both necessarily false with regard to the true physiologi­cal localization or incommensurable because they would belong to the phe­nomenal projected and the physiological domains.

Actually, Kohler claims that on these grounds any account of phenomenal space, and in particular of the relation between the self and the things, is bound to give rise to a paradox since the latter are at the same time conceived to satisfy two inconsistent relations. They are assumed to be located inside the subject’s organism as well as outside of it in the projected space. Instead, if the denotation of the words is properly used, the problem of the internal psychic localization of things in an external physical space does not arise in this paradoxical formulation. The nervous system and the phenomenal space are in reality two different coordinate systems. It is desirable, if not true, that from the scientific standpoint they can be put into correspondence in order to discover which transformation of the first is the bearer of a transformation of the second. Still, from the epistemological standpoint they satisfy two distinct systems of order. The equivocal use of words might induce an unattended shift from one of these coordinate systems to the other. Yet mistaking the sense of “inside” in sentences like “the brain is inside the skull,” “the self is inside the space” and “the space is inside the mind” would imply a misunderstanding of the question, thus giving rise to the paradox of the undecidable relation between incommensurable domains. Of the above-mentioned sentences, the first is true but it denotes a non-perceptual fact; the second is true of a percep­tual fact; the third is not meaningful. Finally, a sentence like “the perceptual space depends on the brain” is true, yet applying it to account for perceptual facts would be like applying the first sentence to account for the functional explanation of the nervous system.

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