Comments on: The Power of Touch

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 09:35:00 +0000

A summary of Lonergan’s own epistemology is given in his *Cognitional Structure* in *Collection*.

His application to consciousness, mainly found in his work on the psychological constitution of Christ, is interesting: if knowing is taking a look then consciousness is perception of ourselves. But then we could only know ourselves as perceived objects not as subjects!

By: Ben Myers

Ben Myers — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 02:29:00 +0000

Hi Cynthia — sorry for the slow reply. The main work by Lonergan on this topic is Insight: A Study in Human Understanding.

By: Br Lawrence, O.P.

Br Lawrence, O.P. — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 22:08:00 +0000

Thanks for your comments on my blog and for your reflection here on the experience of the leper. I have had some experience of working with lepers and wrote about it on World Leprosy Day 2006. If you're interested go to this post on my blog.

By: Cynthia Nielsen

Cynthia Nielsen — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 17:53:00 +0000

Thanks to all for the helpful and informative posts and reading suggestions! My list keeps growing and growing...

Cheers,

Cynthia

By: joel hunter

joel hunter — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 08:13:00 +0000

The Phenomenology of Perception and The Structure of Behavior are both (in their own ways) in pursuit of a non-psychologistic theory of perception. He is at some pains to articulate his notion of incarnate subjectivity that avoids both dualism and naive materialism. Reduced to a slogan: Je suis mon corps.

It is true that he never abandons the language of seeing/the visible, which does give it the appearance of being privileged in his philosophy. But I think what is often going on is the development of a phenomenology of perception that is fundamentally synaesthetic, but which (because it is, after all, phenomenological philosophy) must work through the problematic of seeing/the visible as paradigmatic for consciousness.

An important interlude is his 1958-59 (?) lecture course La Nature at the College de France. With this material and the working notes for The Visible and Invisible, you find a wholesale reassessment of his philosophy and the attempt to abandon categories of 'perception' and 'consciousness' altogether from his ontology.

I wish I had a juicy quote at my fingertips relevant to your post, but hopefully mere allusions by an enthusiastic acolyte will suffice. :-)

By: JoBloggs

JoBloggs — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 05:07:00 +0000

An interesting historical study of the contested nature of ‘seeing’ as a source of knowledge is Leigh Erik Schmidt’s book ‘Hearing Things: Religion, Illusion and the American Enlightenment’. Schmidt argues that evangelical Christianity resisted the dominant Enlightenment discourse of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which privileged sight as a source of knowledge. In doing so it ensured its own cultural marginalisation. Schmidt is particularly interested in the ‘competition’ between sight and hearing, but I think it’s important context for the questions you raise.

By: W.

W. — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 01:13:00 +0000

If you do read Primacy of Perception, I strongly recommend, aside from the chapter with the same title as the book, the chapter “Eye and Mind.” It has been some years since I read it, but that one (and I guess I should also add the one on the child’s relations with others) really affected me and then it was suggested again in a course I took on Heidegger last year. Merleau-Ponty has a lot to say that I think resonates with many across the philosophical spectrum, but then again, don’t most phenomenologists have that trait?!

By the way, will be sure to respond to the cause-effect reply.

By: Michael Joseph

Michael Joseph — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 21:08:00 +0000

I also suggest Colin Gunton's Enlightenment and Alienation for a thorough critique of modern philosophy's tendency to privilege seeing over the other senses in both a literal and an analogous fashion. Gunton draws much from Polyani in his critique.

I do hesitate to agree that Merleau-Ponty did not privilege sight over other senses. His strong interest in optics (i.e. the essay in The Primacy of Perception) kept "sight" in the forefront of his analysis of cognition (just think of the unfinished Visible and the Invisible and its emphasis on art as a means for jogging perception). But as Joel Hunter notes, he does catch himself a few times throughout Phenomenology of Perception.

By: Cynthia Nielsen

Cynthia Nielsen — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 17:45:00 +0000

Hi Joel (nice to meet you),

I haven't read any of Merleau-Ponty's work, but now you have me curious.

Cheers,
Cynthia

By: joel hunter

joel hunter — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 15:54:00 +0000

Have recently discovered your blog and am greatly encouraged by it! This post has “phenomenology” written all over it, esp Merleau-Ponty’s appropriation of Husserl. I have always found his analysis of the touch enriching to my understanding of both the Incarnation and communio sanctorum.