Key Arguments

• He explicitly rejects the analogy-based explanation, aligning with Scheler’s critique: 'But here there is nothing like a “reasoning from analogy.” Scheler said it well: reasoning by analogy presupposes what it is meant to explain.'
• He explains why analogy fails: it would require prior comparison and identification of expressions and 'psychic facts', yet such comparisons are only possible on the basis of a pre-given perception of others: 'Another consciousness can only be deduced if the other person’s emotional expressions and my own are compared and identified, and only if precise correlations are recognized between my gesticulations and my “psychic facts.” But the perception of others precedes and makes possible such observations, so they cannot be constitutive of it.'
• He uses the case of a fifteen-month-old baby to show that intersubjective understanding precedes mirror self-recognition and explicit knowledge of similarity: 'A fifteen-month-old baby opens his mouth when I playfully take one of his fingers in my mouth and pretend to bite it. And yet, he has hardly even seen his face in a mirror and his teeth do not resemble mine.'
• The baby immediately grasps 'biting' as an intersubjective signification across self and other: 'His own mouth and teeth such as he senses them from within are immediately for him the instruments for biting, and my jaw such as he sees it from the outside is for him immediately capable of the same intentions. “Biting” immediately has an intersubjective signification for him.'
• Merleau-Ponty articulates the bodily mediation: 'He perceives his intentions in his body, perceives my body with his own, and thereby perceives my intentions in his body.' This shows that understanding of the other’s intentions goes through a direct, bodily identification, not an intellectual inference.
• He concedes that observed correlations and analogical techniques have a role, but only in derivative, 'methodical knowledge' and in cases where direct perception fails: 'The observed correlations between my gesticulations and those of others, and between my intentions and my gesticulations, can certainly provide a guide in the methodical knowledge of others and when direct perception fails, but they do not teach me about the existence of others.'

Source Quotes

Here again I have but the trace of a consciousness that escapes me in its actuality and, when my gaze crosses another, I reenact the foreign existence in a sort of reflection. But here there is nothing like a “reasoning from analogy.” Scheler said it well: reasoning by analogy presupposes what it is meant to explain.5 Another consciousness can only be deduced if the other person’s emotional expressions and my own are compared and identified, and only if precise correlations are recognized between my gesticulations and my “psychic facts.” But the perception of others precedes and makes possible such observations, so they cannot be constitutive of it.

But here there is nothing like a “reasoning from analogy.” Scheler said it well: reasoning by analogy presupposes what it is meant to explain.5 Another consciousness can only be deduced if the other person’s emotional expressions and my own are compared and identified, and only if precise correlations are recognized between my gesticulations and my “psychic facts.” But the perception of others precedes and makes possible such observations, so they cannot be constitutive of it. A fifteen-month-old baby opens his mouth when I playfully take one of his fingers in my mouth and pretend to bite it.

But the perception of others precedes and makes possible such observations, so they cannot be constitutive of it. A fifteen-month-old baby opens his mouth when I playfully take one of his fingers in my mouth and pretend to bite it. And yet, he has hardly even seen his face in a mirror and his teeth do not resemble mine.

His own mouth and teeth such as he senses them from within are immediately for him the instruments for biting, and my jaw such as he sees it from the outside is for him immediately capable of the same intentions. “Biting” immediately has an intersubjective signification for him. He perceives his intentions in his body, perceives my body with his own, and thereby perceives my intentions in his body.

“Biting” immediately has an intersubjective signification for him. He perceives his intentions in his body, perceives my body with his own, and thereby perceives my intentions in his body. The observed correlations between my gesticulations and those of others, and between my intentions and my gesticulations, can certainly provide a guide in the methodical knowledge of others and when direct perception fails, but they do not teach me about the existence of others.

He perceives his intentions in his body, perceives my body with his own, and thereby perceives my intentions in his body. The observed correlations between my gesticulations and those of others, and between my intentions and my gesticulations, can certainly provide a guide in the methodical knowledge of others and when direct perception fails, but they do not teach me about the existence of others. There is, between my consciousness and my body such as I live it, and between this phenomenal body and the other person’s phenomenal body such as I see it from the outside, an internal relation that makes the other person appear as the completion of the system.

Key Concepts

• But here there is nothing like a “reasoning from analogy.” Scheler said it well: reasoning by analogy presupposes what it is meant to explain.
• Another consciousness can only be deduced if the other person’s emotional expressions and my own are compared and identified, and only if precise correlations are recognized between my gesticulations and my “psychic facts.” But the perception of others precedes and makes possible such observations, so they cannot be constitutive of it.
• A fifteen-month-old baby opens his mouth when I playfully take one of his fingers in my mouth and pretend to bite it.
• “Biting” immediately has an intersubjective signification for him.
• He perceives his intentions in his body, perceives my body with his own, and thereby perceives my intentions in his body.
• they do not teach me about the existence of others.

Context

IV - OTHERS AND THE HUMAN WORLD, continuation of [d. Coexistence made possible by the discovery of perceptual consciousness.], where Merleau-Ponty attacks the analogical inference model and illustrates primordial intersubjective perception with infant behavior.