Key Arguments

• Merleau-Ponty begins by inverting the empiricist order: 'sensations and images, which were to begin and end all knowledge, only ever appear within an horizon of sense, and the signification of the perceived, far from resulting from an association, is in fact presupposed in all associations.'
• He notes that 'Our perceptual field is made of “things” and “gaps between things.”' The parts of a thing 'are not linked together by a simple external association that would be the result of their interdependence having been noticed during the movements of the object,' since we already see 'as things certain wholes that I have never seen move: such as houses, the sun, or mountains.'
• Even if one claims that we 'extend to the immobile object a notion acquired in the experience of moving objects,' the immobile object 'must present, in its actual appearance, some characteristic that grounds its recognition as a thing and justifies this transfer,' and 'this characteristic suffices, without any transfer, to explain the segregation of the field.'
• The unity of everyday manipulable objects likewise cannot be reduced to their solidity: if we try 'to see the intervals between things as themselves things, the appearance of the world would be just as noticeably changed as that of the visual puzzle at the moment when I discover in it “the rabbit” or “the hunter.”' This is not the same elements differently associated, but 'truly a different world.'
• He insists that 'There are no indifferent givens that together set about forming a thing because some factual contiguities or resemblances associate them. Rather, because we first perceive a whole as a thing, the analytic attitude can later discern resemblances or contiguities there.'
• This precedence is ontological, not merely epistemic: 'literally, ... the elements would not be a part of the same world and that resemblance and contiguity could not exist at all' without the initial perception of a whole as a thing.
• He criticizes the psychologist’s 'amphibious' thought, which 'always conceives of consciousness in the world' and 'places the resemblance and the contiguity of stimuli among the objective conditions that determine the constitution of a whole,' speaking of 'stimuli closest together or most similar' that 'tend to join together in the same configuration for perception.' This imports objective relations into a description that should remain at the level of direct experience.
• Against reading Gestalt laws as objective conditions, he stresses that for 'pure description – and Gestalt theory aims to be such a description – the contiguity and the resemblance of stimuli are not prior to the constitution of the whole. “Good form” is not achieved because it would be good in itself in some metaphysical heaven; rather, it is good because it is realized in our experience.'
• The supposed 'conditions of perception' become anterior only when we presuppose 'around it a milieu in which all of the developments and all of the cross-checking that will be performed by analytical perception are already inscribed, and in which all of the norms of actual perception will be justified – a realm of truth, a world'—thus reading perception backwards from its results.
• If we 'hold ourselves to phenomena,' 'the unity of the thing in perception is not constructed through association, but rather, being the condition of association, this unity precedes the cross-checkings that verify and determine it, this unity precedes itself.'
• His beach-and-boat example illustrates this precedence: as he approaches, when parts of the ship 'merge with the forest,' 'there will be a moment in which these details suddenly reunite with the boat and become welded to it'; beforehand he does not perceive particular resemblances or proximities, but 'merely felt that the appearance of the object was about to change, that something was imminent in this tension, as the storm is imminent in the clouds.'
• The 'spectacle was suddenly reorganized, satisfying my vague expectation'; only afterward does he 'recognize, as justifications for the change, the resemblance and the contiguity of what I call “stimuli,”' that is, as reconstructions from a '“true” world,' but these reasons 'were not given as reasons prior to correct perception.'
• He concludes that 'The unity of the object is established upon the presentiment of an imminent order' that answers 'questions that are merely latent in the landscape' and 'organizes elements that until then did not belong to the same universe and which, for that reason, as Kant said insightfully, could not have been associated.'
• By 'placing these elements on the same playing field, that of the unique object, the synopsis makes possible the contiguity and the resemblance among them, and one impression can never, by itself, be associated with another impression.' Thus, association operates only within a pre-given object unity.

Source Quotes

Figure 2 [b. The segregation of the field.] And yet sensations and images, which were to begin and end all knowledge, only ever appear within an horizon of sense, and the signification of the perceived, far from resulting from an association, is in fact presupposed in all associations – whether it has to do with the synopsis of a present figure or the evocation of previous experiences. Our perceptual field is made of “things” and “gaps between things.”4 The parts of a thing are not linked together by a simple external association that would be the result of their interdependence having been noticed during the movements of the object.

The segregation of the field.] And yet sensations and images, which were to begin and end all knowledge, only ever appear within an horizon of sense, and the signification of the perceived, far from resulting from an association, is in fact presupposed in all associations – whether it has to do with the synopsis of a present figure or the evocation of previous experiences. Our perceptual field is made of “things” and “gaps between things.”4 The parts of a thing are not linked together by a simple external association that would be the result of their interdependence having been noticed during the movements of the object. For a start, I see as things certain wholes that I have never seen move: such as houses, the sun, or mountains.

This would not involve the same elements differently linked, the same sensations differently associated, the same text invested with a different sense, or the same matter in a different form, but truly a different world. There are no indifferent givens that together set about forming a thing because some factual contiguities or resemblances associate them. Rather, because we first perceive a whole as a thing, the analytic attitude can later discern resemblances or contiguities there. This does not only mean that, without the perception of the whole we would not imagine observing the resemblance or the contiguity of its elements, but rather, literally, that the elements would not be a part of the same world and that resemblance and contiguity could not exist at all.

Rather, because we first perceive a whole as a thing, the analytic attitude can later discern resemblances or contiguities there. This does not only mean that, without the perception of the whole we would not imagine observing the resemblance or the contiguity of its elements, but rather, literally, that the elements would not be a part of the same world and that resemblance and contiguity could not exist at all. The psychologist, who always conceives of consciousness in the world, places the resemblance and the contiguity of stimuli among the objective conditions that determine the constitution of a whole.

But this language is deceptive, for it opposes objective stimuli (which belong to the perceived world and even to the second-order world constructed by scientific consciousness) to the perceptual consciousness, which psychology must describe according to direct experience. The psychologist’s “amphibious” or hybrid thought always risks reintroducing relations that belong to the objective world into his description. Thus it was possible to believe that Wertheimer’s law of contiguity and law of resemblance brought back the objective contiguity and resemblance of the associationists as constitutive principles of perception.

Thus it was possible to believe that Wertheimer’s law of contiguity and law of resemblance brought back the objective contiguity and resemblance of the associationists as constitutive principles of perception. But in fact, for pure description – and Gestalt theory aims to be such a description – the contiguity and the resemblance of stimuli are not prior to the constitution of the whole. “Good form” is not achieved because it would be good in itself in some metaphysical heaven; rather, it is good because it is realized in our experience.

But in fact, for pure description – and Gestalt theory aims to be such a description – the contiguity and the resemblance of stimuli are not prior to the constitution of the whole. “Good form” is not achieved because it would be good in itself in some metaphysical heaven; rather, it is good because it is realized in our experience. The supposed conditions of perception become anterior to perception itself only when, rather than describing the perceptual phenomenon as a primary opening up to an object, we presuppose around it a milieu in which all of the developments and all of the cross-checking that will be performed by analytical perception are already inscribed, and in which all of the norms of actual perception will be justified – a realm of truth, a world.

By presupposing this realm, we strip perception of its essential function, which is to establish or to inaugurate knowledge, and we view perception through the lens of its results. If we hold ourselves to phenomena, then the unity of the thing in perception is not constructed through association, but rather, being the condition of association, this unity precedes the cross-checkings that verify and determine it, this unity precedes itself. If I am walking on a beach toward a boat that has run aground, and if the funnel or the mast merges with the forest that borders the dune, then there will be a moment in which these details suddenly reunite with the boat and become welded to it.

But these reasons, drawn from having properly perceived the boat, were not given as reasons prior to correct perception. The unity of the object is established upon the presentiment of an imminent order that will, suddenly, respond to questions that are merely latent in the landscape. It will resolve a problem only posed in the form of a vague uneasiness; it organizes elements that until then did not belong to the same universe and which, for that reason, as Kant said insightfully, could not have been associated.

It will resolve a problem only posed in the form of a vague uneasiness; it organizes elements that until then did not belong to the same universe and which, for that reason, as Kant said insightfully, could not have been associated. By placing these elements on the same playing field, that of the unique object, the synopsis makes possible the contiguity and the resemblance among them, and one impression can never, by itself, be associated with another impression. [c. There is no “associative force.”] Nor does an impression have the power to awaken other impressions.

Key Concepts

• And yet sensations and images, which were to begin and end all knowledge, only ever appear within an horizon of sense, and the signification of the perceived, far from resulting from an association, is in fact presupposed in all associations – whether it has to do with the synopsis of a present figure or the evocation of previous experiences.
• Our perceptual field is made of “things” and “gaps between things.”4
• There are no indifferent givens that together set about forming a thing because some factual contiguities or resemblances associate them. Rather, because we first perceive a whole as a thing, the analytic attitude can later discern resemblances or contiguities there.
• literally, that the elements would not be a part of the same world and that resemblance and contiguity could not exist at all.
• the psychologist’s “amphibious” or hybrid thought always risks reintroducing relations that belong to the objective world into his description.
• for pure description – and Gestalt theory aims to be such a description – the contiguity and the resemblance of stimuli are not prior to the constitution of the whole.
• “Good form” is not achieved because it would be good in itself in some metaphysical heaven; rather, it is good because it is realized in our experience.
• If we hold ourselves to phenomena, then the unity of the thing in perception is not constructed through association, but rather, being the condition of association, this unity precedes the cross-checkings that verify and determine it, this unity precedes itself.
• The unity of the object is established upon the presentiment of an imminent order that will, suddenly, respond to questions that are merely latent in the landscape.
• By placing these elements on the same playing field, that of the unique object, the synopsis makes possible the contiguity and the resemblance among them, and one impression can never, by itself, be associated with another impression.

Context

Subsection (b), 'The segregation of the field,' where Merleau-Ponty criticizes associationist and psychologically 'amphibious' accounts of object formation and uses Gestalt insights and phenomenological examples (like the stranded boat) to argue that the unity of 'things' and the articulation of the perceptual field are primary phenomena that condition, rather than result from, associations of sensations or objective stimulus-patterns.