Perception is essentially a risky commitment or belief in a world: to perceive is to pledge oneself to an open future of possible experiences on the basis of a present that never guarantees them, trusting in the world’s continued concordance, which both enables the correction of illusions and leaves us perpetually exposed to error.

By Maurice Merleau-Ponty, from Phenomenology of Perception

Key Arguments

  • He explains that 'In the experience of a perceptual truth, I presume that the concordance experienced up until now would be maintained for a more detailed observation; I put my confidence in the world,' explicitly linking perceptual truth to a trust in ongoing concordance.
  • He defines perception: 'To perceive is suddenly to commit to an entire future of experiences in a present that never, strictly speaking, guarantees that future; to perceive is to believe in a world,' emphasizing its anticipatory and faith-like character.
  • This 'opening to a world' 'makes perceptual truth possible, or the actual realization of a Wahr-Nehmung,97 and permits us “to cross out” the preceding illusion, to hold it to be null and void,' showing that only a world-horizon of future verification allows us to reclassify past appearances as illusory.
  • He illustrates with the example of a large moving shadow that turns out to be a nearby fly: 'I was conscious of seeing a shadow and now I am conscious of having only seen a fly,' indicating that the same perceptual life both generated the illusion and enabled its correction.
  • He notes that 'In the very moment of illusion, this correction was presented to me as possible because the illusion itself makes use of the same belief in the world, only contracts into a solid appearance thanks to this contribution,' so illusion parasitically exploits the same world-faith that underwrites truth.
  • Because each appearance aims at 'the world that I aim at through each appearance, and that rightly or wrongly gives it the weight of truth,' but 'never necessarily requires this particular appearance,' we are never guaranteed that any specific perception is true, only that there is a world.
  • Thus, 'There is an absolute certainty of the world in general, but not of any particular thing,' encapsulating the asymmetry between our indubitable belief in 'a world' and the fallibility of any given perceptual content.
  • This structure explains why we are 'not protected from error' even though illusion 'does not separate me from truth': error and truth are both modalities of the same world-directed commitment inherent in perception.

Source Quotes

I say that I perceive correctly when my body has a precise hold on the spectacle, but this does not mean that my hold is ever complete; it could only be complete if I had been able to reduce all of the object’s interior and exterior horizons to the state of articulated perception, which is in principle impossible. In the experience of a perceptual truth, I presume that the concordance experienced up until now would be maintained for a more detailed observation; I put my confidence in the world. To perceive is suddenly to commit to an entire future of experiences in a present that never, strictly speaking, guarantees that future; to perceive is to believe in a world.
In the experience of a perceptual truth, I presume that the concordance experienced up until now would be maintained for a more detailed observation; I put my confidence in the world. To perceive is suddenly to commit to an entire future of experiences in a present that never, strictly speaking, guarantees that future; to perceive is to believe in a world. It is this opening to a world that makes perceptual truth possible, or the actual realization of a Wahr-Nehmung,97 and permits us “to cross out” the preceding illusion, to hold it to be null and void.
To perceive is suddenly to commit to an entire future of experiences in a present that never, strictly speaking, guarantees that future; to perceive is to believe in a world. It is this opening to a world that makes perceptual truth possible, or the actual realization of a Wahr-Nehmung,97 and permits us “to cross out” the preceding illusion, to hold it to be null and void. I saw a large shadow moving on the periphery of my visual field and at a distance, I turn my gaze to this side and the phantasm shrinks and takes its proper place: it was only a fly close to my eye.
My belonging to the world allows me to compensate for the fluctuations of the cogito, to displace one cogito in favor of another, and to meet up with the truth of my thought beyond its appearance. In the very moment of illusion, this correction was presented to me as possible because the illusion itself makes use of the same belief in the world, only contracts into a solid appearance thanks to this contribution, and hence, being always open to an horizon of presumptive verifications, the illusion does not separate me from truth. But, for the same reason, I am not protected from error since the world that I aim at through each appearance, and that rightly or wrongly gives it the weight of truth, never necessarily requires this particular appearance.
But, for the same reason, I am not protected from error since the world that I aim at through each appearance, and that rightly or wrongly gives it the weight of truth, never necessarily requires this particular appearance. There is an absolute certainty of the world in general, but not of any particular thing. Consciousness is distant from being and from its own being, and at the same time united to them, through the thickness of the world.

Key Concepts

  • In the experience of a perceptual truth, I presume that the concordance experienced up until now would be maintained for a more detailed observation; I put my confidence in the world.
  • To perceive is suddenly to commit to an entire future of experiences in a present that never, strictly speaking, guarantees that future; to perceive is to believe in a world.
  • It is this opening to a world that makes perceptual truth possible, or the actual realization of a Wahr-Nehmung,97 and permits us “to cross out” the preceding illusion, to hold it to be null and void.
  • In the very moment of illusion, this correction was presented to me as possible because the illusion itself makes use of the same belief in the world, only contracts into a solid appearance thanks to this contribution,
  • There is an absolute certainty of the world in general, but not of any particular thing.

Context

II - SPACE, continuing the examination of illusion and perceptual truth, Merleau-Ponty characterizes perception as a world-directed faith and commitment that grounds both the possibility of correcting illusions and the perpetual risk of error.