A.N. WHITEHEAD, MERLEAU-PONTY, AND THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL

PSYCHOPHYSICAL SUB-OBJECTIVE EVENT OF EXPERIENCE

by

PATRICK M. WHITEHEAD

A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty

of the University of West Georgia in Partial Fulfillment

of the

Requirements for the Degree

of

Doctor of Philosophy

CARROLLTON, GEORGIA

2014

iii

ABSTRACT

PATRICK M. WHITEHEAD: A.N. Whitehead, Merleau-Ponty, and the

Phenomenological Psychophysical Sub-objective Event of Experience

(Under the direction of Christopher M. Aanstoos, PhD)

This is a project that attempts to trace out a contemporary conciliation between the

modern science and humanism—constituents of nature which Alfred North Whitehead

(1938/1958) despairingly has found have been kept separated. I argue that it may be understood

that psychology is the discipline that is best poised to handle this task. After reviewing the

history of nature’s bifurcation in Western philosophy, metaphysics, and psychology, I argue that

a combination of Whiteheadian process and phenomenology provides the best model and method

for actualizing these early projects of psychology and for meeting Whitehead’s hopes for

nature’s conciliation. This may be seen most conspicuously in the later works of Merleau-Ponty

(1964/1968; 1956-60/2003). When Whitehead is read alongside phenomenology, three

traditionally underemphasized points of phenomenology receive emphasis; moreover, these

points respond to critiques that phenomenology is ill-fit as a 21st century discipline (Meillassoux,

2003/2012; Harman, 2011). First, the division of nature into mutually exclusive and hierarchical

categories of life (Merleau-Ponty, 1942/1963) is replaced with the recognition that life is present

across each of these levels. Second, subjectivity may be found extending outside of the

traditional boundaries of human, self-reflective consciousness. And finally, objects may also be

found participating in the phenomenological sub-objective event in unique and meaningful ways.

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Moreover, it is argued that subjects and objects only become differentiated as such within the

event of experience—prior to which they exist as undifferentiated antecedent events.

After articulating the integral and co-constitutional relationship between subjects and

object within the event of experience, three psychological methods are suggested. The first

method is that of phenomenological psychophysics. For the next two it is argued that the sub-

objective event may also be used to understand the event of experience from nonhuman vantage

points. Nonhuman subjectivity is explored using alien phenomenology (Bogost, 2012) and

nonhuman psychology is explored using object-oriented psychology which has been proposed

here. These last two methodologies are found limited by contemporary parameters of

psychology and scientific inquiry, but their theoretical defense marks an important shift in the

continued evolution of psychology as a discipline and the concept of human.

v

©2014

Patrick M Whitehead

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

vi

DEDICATION

To Mademoiselle Gris: For selflessly and vigilantly keeping watch over my parents.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In order to do justice to the task of acknowledging those to whom the present work is

indebted, I would have to reach back in history towards the first texts written in the Western

canon. Indeed, the work that has been done in throughout these pages would not have been

possible without the courage, audacity, insight, and brilliance of the philosophers, scientists,

scholars, and teachers that have gone before me. For it is because of their sleepless nights,

dedication, and uncompromising pursuit of knowledge that this dissertation has been possible.

In some instances these contributions may be found neatly referenced in the pages that follow,

but in many more their guidance has been implicit. I begin by thanking my friends with whom I

have shared no geographical or, indeed, even temporal proximity.

Next are those who have shaped my own academic pursuit through encouragement,

support, challenge, and criticism. While this could easily begin in grade school with a list of

teachers and mentors whose concern has proven consequential to my subsequent development, I

will instead focus on those nearest to the present project. I would like to begin by thanking Eric

Dodson. You are a difficult man to impress. You are also a difficult man to disappoint. You are

Shunryo Suzuki’s door that opens and closes with the wind. It was through your coursework that

I learned to find my voice as a writer. Your powerfully influential experiential and learner-

centered approach has also shaped my instructional style, and this will be taken with me

wherever I go. This project would have been shelved eight months ago had it not been for the

enthusiastic encouragement of John Roberts. In the matter of about fifteen minutes of talking

with you, I went from having a peculiar idea for a paper to an exciting dissertation project. Your

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concern for my intellectual and professional development, in addition to my emotional well-

being, is unparalleled. You helped me through a difficult period of profound uncertainty and

despair with this project, and for this I am infinitely grateful. You are a mentor, colleague, and

friend.

I would also like to thank Hans Skott-Myhre. Hans, your presence at West Georgia

reminds me of the children’s game “fruit basket upset.” This is the game where somebody calls

out the title and everybody has to leave the position they currently occupy and find someone

else’s. I have done more seat-changing in your courses (indeed, in this project) than I did when

navigating the developmental throes of the adolescent psychosocial moratorium. Like the

moratorium, you have shown me how to be comfortable in my own skin and with my own ideas.

And finally, I am grateful for the guidance and mentorship of Chris Aanstoos. There is

no way I am a PhD student at West Georgia without you, Chris. You are an exemplary teacher,

brilliant scholar, and encouraging chairperson. Nobody has done more to shape me as a young

scholar. A good teacher leaves their students inspired about the subject matter. A great teacher,

so I have learned with you, leaves students with the insatiable desire and conviction to explore

every available nook and cranny of the subject matter. The highest compliment that I have been

paid as an instructor has been a comparison to you. Academically, you have motivated me to be

bold and courageous with my writing, and broad with my audience.

Finally, I would like to thank my parents, George and Patricia Whitehead. Because of

you, I will never know what it is like to do something without the support of people who love

me. Thank you.

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PREFACE

I was introduced nearly a decade ago to the process philosophy of Alfred North

Whitehead. The introduction was far from thorough, limited primarily to what mention he

received as commentary to the metaphysical memoirs of a schizophrenic, Robert Pirsig (1974)—

to whom, I confess, I am deeply indebted. I was attracted in part by his name and in part by the

sparkling recommendation he had received from Pirsig. Moreover, his appeal may be

understood in terms of how it contrasted with what I had been learning as an undergraduate

student situated in a mainstream psychology department in a twenty-first century Western

university. As it stood, the future before me lay ripe with unanswered questions which, with the

help of scientific rigor, I might win over as a distinguished participant in the logical-empirical

project of psychology. The words of Whitehead, delivered with unquestionable conviction and

care, stood opposed to this project. Indeed, the very notion of causality—the quintessential

element in the answer to the question of “why”—is dispensed with. He writes, “How can one

event be the cause of another? In the first place, no event can be wholly and solely the cause of

another event. The whole antecedent world conspires to produce a new occasion” (1938/1958, p.

225). To be sure, had it not been for Whitehead’s unrelenting conviction, I would likely have

closed the book on this metaphysical mystic with an unfortunate name, and returned to the

acquisition of the tools of a logically empirical psychology that have been dutifully outlined in a

mainstream methods textbook. Instead, I was beholden by the peculiar manner by which science

seemed to have done an about-face in the presence of this impressive scholar.

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This marvel followed me around the university town for the next several months.

Eventually I found myself in the library doing something that would increasingly become a

hobby of mine: locating an interesting-sounding title and browsing the books found nearby. A

library, particularly in a university town, will say a lot about the departments there. This works

for used-bookstores too. Typically, one finds aisles and aisles devoted to the sciences and their

practice, but only one or two shelves written on the philosophy of science—a marginal fraction

of which is in any way critical of modernity. Sometimes, however, this typical scenario might be

found in the reverse. For instance, the Ingram Library at the University of West Georgia has at

least twelve aisles spread out across two floors containing titles on the philosophy of science—its

critique, practice, and potential. This, incidentally, is a great way to spend an afternoon. But the

university town I found myself in at the beginning of this story was more representative of the

scenario most typical, if not more conservative still. I was looking for a copy of Whitehead’s

Process and Reality but, having come up empty-handed, decided to peruse instead. Meanwhile,

the marvel of Whitehead’s audacious criticism of the modern scientific project still lingered. It

was at this moment that I came across a title that gave me a startle. The lingering wonder

intensified and the entire universe seemed to come crashing into that single moment, in that

abandoned aisle, on that un-browsed shelf. The spine read The Crisis of European Sciences

(Husserl, 1970).

I had advanced far enough along in the history of science to infer that “European

Sciences” was in reference to the chief sciences—the capital S sciences—of Britain, Germany,

and France. These were the sciences adopted by mainstream Western universities, like the one at

which I had been studying. This, obviously, was not what had given me a start. Indeed, it

merely informed the gravity of the entire phrase. Science is in Crisis?! I peaked inside at the

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table of contents and found what seemed to be an earnest attempt at making the case that Science

was, indeed, in crisis. Ill-equipped to handle the density of the vernacular and arguments, I

began looking into the second part of the title: “transcendental phenomenology.” The following

year I decided to put the cultishly empirical (Toulmin & Leary, 1985) project of psychology on

hold for a brief while as I looked further into phenomenological psychology—whatever that

might mean. Incidentally, I am still looking into it, and the present project is the beginning of

what my investigation has yielded.

Before I began the present project, I liked to think that Whitehead served as the original

catalyst for the subsequent work I would do in philosophical, theoretical, and phenomenological

psychology. I thought that I had left him behind in order to focus on more contemporary

scholars that had subsequently taken his ideas further than he had. I would visit his work on

occasion, using his words in papers here and there. However, I always imagined that his critique

was too specific to Euclidean mathematics and Newtonian physics, and that it held little benefit

for the discipline of psychology. But now I realize that his ideas are still relevant for the

continued development of science into the twenty-first century. It is as though his words

themselves—Whitehead’s adventurous ideas—have patiently plied and molded subsequent

scientific thought. As if with agency, his ideas have sought their own clarity through the

scholars that would follow. This can be seen with Merleau-Ponty’s (1956-57/2003) course at the

Colléges de Frances. Indeed, there is no separating Whitehead from the philosophy of science

that would come; Whitehead’s unrelenting conviction in the virtue of science persists! Now

phenomenological psychophysics is poised as the nexus through which his impact might be

presently felt.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... ii

DEDICATION .................................................................................................................. vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................... vii

PREFACE ......................................................................................................................... ix

TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................. xii

LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... xiv

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................... 1

Psychology: The 19th Century Nominee for Nature’s Conciliation ................................ 6

Phenomenology and the Conciliation of Nature ............................................................. 10

Problem Statement ........................................................................................................ 12

Method.......................................................................................................................... 14

Project Outline .............................................................................................................. 16

Limitations .................................................................................................................... 25

CHAPTER TWO: NATURE, A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ................................. 28

Physis: Nature’s First Bifurcation. ................................................................................. 34

Modernist Conceptions of Nature, Being ....................................................................... 39

Mending the Bifurcation: Merleau-Ponty’s Historical Analysis of Nature...................... 47

Psychology, Bifurcated: Alfred North Whitehead and the Task for Psychology ............. 61

Arguments Against the Mutual Consideration of A.N. Whitehead and

Merleau-Ponty ............................................................................................................ 120

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CHAPTER THREE: THE SUB-OBJECTIVE EVENT OF EXPERIENCE ....................... 140

Section I: The Experiencing Subject .............................................................................. 150

Section II: Objects of Experience .................................................................................. 183

Section III: The Sub-objective Event ............................................................................ 198

CHAPTER FOUR: METHODS FOR INVESTIGATING THE PSYCHOLOGICAL

SUB-OBJECTIVE EVENT OF EXPERIENCE ............................................................... 250

Section IV: Phenomenological Psychophysics .............................................................. 251

Section V: Human Science and Alien Human Science .................................................. 293

Section VI: Object-oriented Psychology ....................................................................... 318

CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION ..................................................................................... 348

REFERENCES ................................................................................................................. 355

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LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE PAGE

1. Necker Cube………………………………………………………………………... 209

2. Rosen's Adapted Necker Cube……………………………………………………... 212

3. Cylinder and Möbius Strip.…..…………………………………………………….. 216

4. Torus and Klein Bottle……………………………………………………………... 219

5. Sinking Fog……………………………………………………………………….... 234

6. Browning Movement of a Sinking Droplet………………………………………....234

7. Feynman Diagram………………………………………………………………….. 236

8. Kanizsa Square……………………………………………………………………... 259

CHAPTER ONE:

INTRODUCTION

The present project has been motivated by a hope that Alfred North Whitehead was

inspired enough to share: that modern science and humanism might find conciliation (1938/1958,

p. 178). While the subsequent literature review will supply a far more thorough historical and

theoretical grounding of these two disparate modes of inquiry, consider briefly what has been

indicated. Given his considerable scholarship concerning the history and philosophy of Western

modern natural sciences (1925/1953, 1929/1978, 1938/1958), it may be reasonably assumed

what Whitehead had in mind when using the term “modern science.” This indicates the

development of scientific knowledge that saw a rapid proliferation in the 17th

century, and had

remained the privileged mode of understanding the cosmos into the early 20th

century. Its

ontological assumptions may be traced back to Parmenides (Seidel, 1964) who observed that

nature is fixed and unchanging. Its epistemology may be traced to any subsequent Western

philosopher—except Plato, Whitehead reminds his readers—whose arguments concern the

verification procedures for said reality. At the time of his writing, there was a growing sense of

unease in the academy regarding the scientific commitment to modernist modes of knowing.

Whitehead (1938/1958) refers to this as “lifeless” knowledge (pp. 173-201). This is evident

from his own work, but also from a host of social and physical sciences as well. When

considered as discrete components of the static and unchanging universe, the existing as well as

possible relationships between objects may be traced out and understood. The result is lifeless

nature. These objects may combine to form complicated systems—systems whose operation

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would be incapable without a certain combination of discrete parts. These parts, however, serve

a single function in the system and are easily replaced. While considered loosely and hurriedly,

this brief overview of the modernist conception of reality had yielded impressive results through

the 19th century of Western science—an impression felt by Whitehead (1925/1953). It can be

understood that modern science from the 17th -19

th centuries had carefully constructed a universe

out of discrete objects.

This brings us to what Whitehead had intended by “humanism.” Anything falling outside

of modernism’s objective definition was not given a place in serious scientific inquiry; this has

historically included the human subject. It is important to discern the human subject from the

human. The human had, of course, been given much attention in 19th century disciplines of

physiology and medicine, but the human thus characterized is nothing but a bundle of discrete

objects and combine to form rather complicated mechanisms—that is, more objective material.

This may be seen in the mid-19th

century analyses of the psychical realm as well. Fechner

(1859/1966) argued for the mechanical relationship between physical forces and their psychical

impressions in what he termed psycho-physical parallelism. While Fechner’s proposal was

inherently phenomenological, it was not taken up this way (Horst, 2005). Understood as a

singularly third-personal collection of empirical data, the transformation that occurs between the

physical forces (measured by calibrated tools) and their psychical impressions (measured by

subjective report) could be explained by a logarithmic law that varied based on the magnitude of

physical force. Note how the subject thus conceived is but an echo of the physical world. The

19th century human sciences viewed the human as a combination of objects. Insofar as this

objectivist project of modern science had been directed at understanding nature, non-objective

human events had been rent from the latter’s fabric. Moreover, and perhaps more insidiously, it

3

was understood that the ontological depth of nature could not in principle exceed the objective

relationships between discrete physical entities and the laws of mechanism and unidirectional

causality. In sum, with a few exceptions the 19th century concludes with a mechanical-objective

realism which denies the subject. Whitehead hoped to see conciliation here were there

traditionally had been none.

Whitehead and many other early- to mid-20th century scientists and philosophers began to

observe that the mechanical-objective model of nature had been growing increasingly untenable.

Its untenability is threefold. First, even the once inanimate physical world of mechanical

relationships breaks down at the quantum level (e.g., Prigogine & Stengers, 1984; Stapp, 2011);

second, organic systems frequently defy the laws of mechanism (e.g., Goldstein, 1934/1995;

Schrödinger, 1944/1967); and third, it was realized that the once inconsequential subject proved

consequential (e.g., Köhler, 1947/1957; Polanyi, 1958)! It seemed that nature was not reducible

to discrete objects that combine to form a diversity of mechanisms, but that it was more complex

than 19th century conceptions allowed. Moreover, it became increasingly apparent that the

subject must be considered in the solution to the emerging problems. This interdisciplinary

recognition of the limitations of the modern conception of nature initiated a revolution in how

nature might be conceived. The revolutionary conception featured an increasingly limited role

played by mechanical-objective realism and now allowed for the role of the observer. For

example, in physics it was understood that the observing scientist must be taken into

consideration as a variable in the experiment. Philosophers of science like Michael Polanyi

(1958) began to argue that the scientist, however removed from the experiment being conducted,

was still responsible for the question, method, tools, data collection, and analysis and must

therefore take responsibility for the role played in the results of scientific inquiry. Facts could no

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longer be understood as having an existence independently of researchers. This may be seen

taken a step further with Edmund Husserl and the continental school of phenomenology which

would follow. Following Kant’s argument that the objective entity (noema) is always beyond

the grasp of a subject, Husserl calls for a phenomenological grasp of this object. That is, instead

of apprehending the object proper—the object-in-itself, one must concede to a singular and

personal grasp of an object—the object-in-itself-for-me. He defends this through the

employment of Brentano’s (1874/2002) notion of “intentionality.” Intentionality maintains that

subjective consciousness is always engaged with something in particular. The objective entity

(noema) and subjective consciousness (noesis) are found mutually unfolding in an event or

(noetic) act. Thus, one cannot argue for the object-in-itself as though it exists independently of

an intending subject.

The 20th century is marked by an amendment to the longstanding commitment to a

mechanical-objective realist ontology that had guided scientific exploration. Nature is no longer

conceived simply as a mechanical composition of discrete objects. Instead, these mechanisms

are found breaking down in particular configurations; they are found combining in ways that the

laws of mechanism do not allow; and the objects-in-themselves are always and necessarily found

beneath the spotlight of the subject. This last point indicates an impressive change from the 19th

century role of the subject—a role which Whitehead (1938/1958) observed had traditionally been

relegated to mysticism. Yet the question remains whether or not the more complicated

conception of nature satisfies Whitehead’s hope that modern science and humanism might find

conciliation. I argue that they have not yet found conciliation. While phenomenology has

provided the means of fusing these disparate conceptions of nature together, their conciliation

has not yet been established. To be sure, the subject has been liberated from the cellar and

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recognized for the dynamic role it plays. But in its haste, the re-establishment of the subject has

brought with it the baggage of the Medieval eternal human soul—e.g. free will, unitary self, and

a privileged capacity for complexity of being (e.g., intelligence, sentience, etc.). This

transcendent “self” replaces the object in the role of constancy—that is, now it is the subject that

remains unchanged during the course of an experiential event (Rosen, 2008). What

unfortunately emerges in the mid-20th century is the liberation of a distinctly human subject—a

restriction which phenomenology does not require. With this restriction, nature is only

conciliated from the social-historical context of the mid-20th

century Western human subject. I

argue that in order to conciliate nature in the manner consistent with Whitehead’s hopes, the

dynamism which has been extended to the human subject must be extended to objects as well.

When taken together, subjects and objects co-participate as flesh of the world (Merleau-Ponty,

1964/1968). Their interrelationships may be explored through methods of 1) phenomenological

psychophysics (object-in-itself-for-subjects), 2) alien phenomenology (object-in-itself-for-

objects; Bogost 2012), and 3) phenomenological psychophysics (the interrelationships between

subjects and objects which denote the sub-objective event).

In summary, the 20th century witnessed a complexification of nature’s conceptualization.

Instead of operating by the laws of mechanical-objective realism, nature is found operating on

the now limited laws of quantum-mechanical-objective realism and through the engagement with

dynamic subjectivity. The subject’s role is acknowledged as integral to the constitution of

objects. In physics, it is understood that subjectivity is no longer caused by discrete objective

entities, but that this relationship might also be reversed. In continental philosophy, objects and

subjects are co-constituted in the intentional act. It seems that the phenomenologists have

conciliated nature. This is done by recognizing the mutual interrelationship between the now

6

liberated intending-subject and the corresponding intentional-object. There is, however, some

concern regarding the privilege given to the specifically human subject in this relationship, and

this concern will be taken seriously through the duration of this project. The quantum physicists

(as well as various other physical and biological scientists who espouse this bi-directional

subject-object explanatory framework of mechanized nature) have not yet freed themselves from

20th century mechanisticity as they still have subjects standing opposed to objects (Rosen, 2008).

Rosen argues that the inequality between subjects and objects that has marked the history of

modern and contemporary physics might find equal footing by referring to the entities under

investigation as sub-objects. I have borrowed this phrase in what I have termed the sub-objective

event of experience. In order to understand the ground upon which quantum physicists might

benefit from phenomenology, and the reverse, one must return to the first effort made at

conciliating subjects and objects—modern (19th century) psychology. By considering the role

that psychology has played in the history of nature’s conciliation, a three-part method of inquiry

into nature may be outlined. It will be the task of the present work to provide its theoretical

defense and to demonstrate this through the exploration of examples.

Psychology: The 19th Century Nominee for Nature’s Conciliation

Not only was the discipline of psychology uniquely poised to offer the point of

conciliation between modern science and humanism, but it had actually been created for this

specific purpose. While Fechner (1859/1966) provides one such example of a method of

discerning the point of contact between the world of physical bodies and the world of mental

bodies, his project was taken up as an appendage of physics (Horst, 2005); his method will be

considered in more detail in section IV. Instead, Wilhelm Wundt (1897) and William James

(1899/1962) will presently be used to demonstrate the aims of the early project of psychology. It

7

is appropriate that Wundt and James are known for developing the first international and

American experimental psychological laboratories, respectively. As such, from their work we

might understand the scope of the fledgling discipline.

William James had been teaching courses at Harvard between the departments of

philosophy and physiology that seemed to be aimed at their intersection. For example, during

the 1875-76, and 76-77 school years, James taught a graduate course called “The Relations

between Physiology and Psychology” (Usher, ND). In the subsequent years, he taught an

advanced course in Philosophy on the topic of Psychology. These courses continued through the

next decade until the 1885/86 school year when James taught a survey course of experimental

research in psychology. If, gathering from the sub-topics in the courses previously mentioned, it

is understood that philosophical psychological questions pertain to mental and intellectual

matters and physiological psychological questions pertain to anatomy and biology, then certainly

psychology is the vantage point from which the body might be unified with the mind. From this

one learns that there is something added to both physiology and to philosophy when they are

used to answer questions of psychology. What is uncertain is whether or not psychology itself

offers something independent from these two disciplines.

Wilhelm Wundt’s (1897) consideration of this mind and body problem may be found in

his discussion of “The Problem of Psychology” (pp. 1-10). Here he writes,

Two definitions of psychology have been the most prominent in the history of this

science. According to one, psychology is the “science of mind”, psychical

processes being regarded as phenomena from which it is possible to infer the

nature of an underlying metaphysical mindsubstance. According to the other,

psychology is the “science of inner experience”; psychical processes are here

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looked upon as belonging to a specific form of experience, which is readily

distinguished by the fact that its contents are known through “introspection”….

(p. 1)

It is clear that in the consideration of psychology as a subjective science—Wundt’s “science of

inner experience”—that there is something explicable going on regarding the relationship

between psychical processes and specific forms of experience. It is also clear that psychological

phenomena do not emanate from discrete physical mechanisms as in Fechner’s psycho-physical

parallelism. Referring to the problem of the conciliation between modern science and

humanism, discussed above through the separation of discrete objects and subjects, the 19th

century discipline of psychology acknowledges the reciprocal relationship between these two

categories. Wundt continues,

[T]he expressions outer and inner experience do not indicate different objects, but

different points of view…of a unitary experience. … [E]xperience immediately

divides into two factors: into a content presented to us, and our apprehension of

this content. We call the first of these factors objects of experience, the second,

experiencing subject. (pp. 2-3)

Wundt names the point of contact between objects and subjects “experience”—experience from

the “point of view” of the object and that of the subject. Notice how this stands in opposition to

the modern notion of distinct objects that relate based on mechanical laws of physics. One no

longer finds objects-in-themselves, but objects-in-space-before-subjects; one no longer finds

subjects-in-themselves (or by-themselves: solus ipse), but subjects-in-space-before-objects. This

was an important step in the direction of nature’s conciliation—modern science and humanism

or objects and subjects—but it proved to have begun before its time. Shortly after its exciting

9

start, psychologists began developing their identity as a branch of physiology by emphasizing the

singular importance of the nervous system as the mediating principle of psychical experience—

that is, subject-in-space-before-object. James observes this even in the latter part of the 19th

century:

An influential school of psychology, seeking to avoid haziness of outline, has

tried to make things appear more exact and scientific by making the analysis more

sharp. The various fields of consciousness, according to this school, result from a

definite number of perfectly definite elementary mental states, mechanically

associated into a mosaic or chemically combined. (1899/1962, p. 9)

Despite its promising mission, psychology needed to work out its identity as a modern physical

science before acknowledging the more complicated interrelationships between minds and

bodies, subjects and objects.

This is the point where the story of psychology meets up with Whitehead’s optimistic

hope. Psychology is still poised to conciliate between conceptions of nature which Whitehead

observed were disparate in modern times. Recall the aforementioned transformation that

occurred regarding the conception of nature that occurred in the mid-20th

century. The route that

psychology ended up taking—the one that James abhorred—proved to be a blind alley.

Mechanical laws occasionally broke down in atoms, they occasionally broke down in organisms,

and they continuously broke down with intentional sub-objects. Indeed, there was little left to

defend the absolute adherence to a mechanical-objective realist ontology. Yet rather than

collapse these disparate fields—physics, physiology, phenomenological psychology—upon one-

another in recognition of the subject-object interplay characteristic of the flesh of which they are

comprised, three disparate fields emerge. To be sure, these fields bear little in resemblance to

10

the mechanical-objective realist conception maintained in the 19th century, but one still finds

three distinct orders of nature. Moreover, these orders are often organized in a hierarchical

fashion. Until these orders have been collapsed, there will be no conciliation and nature will

remain divided.

Phenomenology and the Conciliation of Nature

I am confident that phenomenology provides the necessary insights for nature’s

conciliation. It is here that the precedent has been set regarding the seamless fabric of nature.

Subjects and objects are found fused together into Wundt’s “experiences” and Whitehead’s

“events.” There is no object absent an intending subject; there is no subject absent an intentional

object. Phenomenology, with help from various other disciplines, has rescued the subject from

the 19th century ontological abyss. Furthermore, subjects and objects thus conceived are

understood as having a complicated depth of being that recognizes static forms and dynamic

processes. Indeed, phenomenology understands that the myriad dualities that have characterized

Western thought co-exist in a dynamic reciprocal relationship that defies anything that physics

can model in Euclidean or non-Euclidean space.

While I am confident that phenomenology holds the necessary insights for nature’s

conciliation, I maintain that this has not yet been made apparent. Fortunately for the present

project, the difficult work has already been done. Rescuing the subject from the abyss of

mysticism to which it had been relegated in the 19th

century is the hard part. This has been

accomplished through a systematic demonstration of the subject’s role in constituting the object.

Now the subject must also be understood as a constituent of nature, woven into the fabric of its

flesh. This is no longer an exclusively mystical possibility but has been defended as

ontologically valid (Merleau-Ponty, 1964/1968; Barbaras, 1991/2004). What remains is a

similar rescuing procedure performed on the 19th century object. While contemporary poets are

11

now allowed to describe their experiences of phenomenological intertwining with rosebushes,

country paths, and loved ones, such privilege is not granted to tsunamis, macaroni penguins, and

concrete super-highways. What remains is the completion of the early project of psychology; a

conciliation which I have termed phenomenological psychophysics of the sub-objective event

(following Rosen, 2008). Phenomenology provides a rich history of compelling methods and

examples of Wundt’s “experiencing subject.” These demonstrate the subject-object unity from

the vantage point of the subject. Now attention must be paid to the objects to which subjects are

always necessarily bound.

In order to rescue objects from the stale 19th century mechanical-objectivistic ontology,

they must be understood as co-participants in the sub-object event: just as objects are

epistemologically defined by subjects, so too are subjects defined by objects. Furthermore, since

subjects and objects together comprise the flesh of the world, their interrelationship must be

understood as reversible. This is where the difficulty is faced in the present project. Though

subjects and objects represent two constituents of a singular event, their identities as such are

capable of reversing: subjects are capable of becoming objects and the reverse. Rather than

contradict the phenomenological notion of intentional consciousness, this actually strengthens it.

Rather than consciousness emanating from the subject and kidnapping objects, it is understood to

be shared between object and subject, subject and object.

Three underemphasized points of phenomenology must given consideration in the

resuscitation of objects. By using “underemphasized points” instead of “changes” or

“amendments,” it is recognized that phenomenology has supplied the means of nature’s

conciliation even though this is not apparent from the outset. First, nature’s division into three

orders must be collapsed into a single order. This is important because their division implies a

12

hierarchy which assumes that some entities are more responsible for constituting the world than

are others. This also limits the entities across which reversibility is possible. Second, it must be

understood that subjects are not transcendent of the space-time of the phenomenological

psychophysical sub-objective event. That is, there is not a subject that engages and transforms

objects without herself also being changed. This goes against traditional notions of a self which

remains static through time. Finally, non-human objects must be understood as having an

ontological depth and breadth no less deep and broad than that of humans. Once again, these

arguments are contained within the tradition of phenomenology, though they are often

underemphasized. It has been common in recent years, however, to accuse the tradition of

phenomenology for anthropocentrically privileging the mid-20th century human subject—here

intentional consciousness is uniquely human and human existential analytic of Dasein is alone

responsible for constituting the world of being. These criticisms will be taken seriously and dealt

with within the tradition of phenomenology. I have chosen to remain within the purview of

phenomenology—particularly that of Merleau-Ponty—because I maintain that it provides the

necessary insights for nature’s conciliation. When complete, the three aforementioned methods

of psychological inquiry will be explored. This psychology will extend beyond the orthodox

human subject and the objects there entertained, recognizing the reversibility of flesh. This is a

psychology of the phenomenological psychophysical sub-objective event.

Problem Statement

Vicious bifurcation is the problem at issue. This occurs when nature is cut in two and

one of the halves is discarded. This may be found occurring at the hands of modernism which

had been responsible for discarding the subject; it may also be found occurring at the hands of

humanism when the latter draws lines of hierarchical division across nature. These conceptions

13

of nature—modernist and humanist—have been taken from Merleau-Ponty’s (1956-57/2003)

course notes on Nature. These have been chosen for the present project because Merleau-Ponty

utilizes Whitehead’s process philosophy in a proposal for nature’s conciliation.

As indicated above, at the time of the introduction of the term “vicious bifurcation,” late

19th century philosophy and practice of science had followed Parmenides in the assumption that

nature is fixed, unchanging, and available to objective investigation. As a result, all dynamic

processes (termed “phenomenal”) were dropped from investigation by the logical empiricist

edicts of the Vienna Circle (Polkinghorne, 1982). The same may be found in the modern

practice of psychology. Here, logical empiricists eliminate “experiencing subject” from Wundt’s

(1897) psychology, assuming that “objects of experience” provide the only valid entities for

psychological inquiry (Toulmin & Leary, 1985). Mid-century continental philosophy has been

marked by an outright rejection of the narrowness of this approach to science (e.g., Heidegger,

1927/1962; Merleau-Ponty, 1942/1963, 1945/1962; Husserl, 1931/2002, 1970).

While Whitehead’s original use of term “vicious bifurcation” had implicated modernity,

the present project implicates the practice of science that has followed mid-century continental

philosophy. Following Merleau-Ponty (1956-57/2003), I have termed this vicious bifurcation

practice “humanism.” Like the logical empiricists have done to subjectivity, the vicious

bifurcation of which the humanists are guilty follows from the flat rejection of all forms of

objectivity, a sacrifice made in efforts to avoid the position of naïve realism. This places the

human subject at the center of scientific practice in a manner reminiscent of geocentrism. This is

not to say that all forms of humanism espouse a de facto rejection of all forms of realism;

“humanism” is simply the blanket term that Merleau-Ponty has proposed for the practice that

proceeds in this capacity. The problematic form of humanism that is implicated here has been

14

referred to as “correllationism” which will receive greater explication in the Literature Review,

below. For the humanists, the problem is that object-constancy has been replaced by subject-

constancy. While this dialectically oppositional strategy has corrected some of the

methodological flaws of modern science, it has created new ones. In addition to the belittling of

objects to ‘mere objects’ (Heidegger, 1927/1962), the humanists restrict the concept of “human”

and limit acceptable forms of subjectivity.

The present project demonstrates how the tradition of phenomenology does not require

the pejorative categorization of “humanism.” Instead, the transformation that phenomenology

was responsible for bringing about in the subject may be found extending to objects as well.

This results in a conciliated conception of nature. It is nature as flesh.

Method

This project will employ a theoretical analysis of the work of Merleau-Ponty that spans

mid-20th century to present day alongside the corpus of work supplied by Alfred North

Whitehead. These philosophers have been chosen specifically for their ability to demonstrate

nature’s conciliation. There is, however, a growing concern that phenomenology is stuck in an

ontological mire that presupposes a fixed and unchanging subject (and that this is reason enough

to dispense with its entire project). These concerns have been issued from the posthumanit ies

and post-phenomenological continental philosophies that have emerged over the last decade.

Furthermore, Whitehead’s process philosophy has been used to defend these allegations against

phenomenology. I argue that it would be more beneficial to consider Whitehead’s process

philosophy alongside phenomenology instead of replacing the latter with the former. This is

why the present volume has been titled A.N. Whitehead & Merleau-Ponty.

15

As already mentioned, the purpose for including phenomenology is in the unique insights

it holds for understanding nature as a single, undivided fabric—that is, as flesh. The purpose for

including Whitehead is threefold: (1) his (1925/1953) critique of modernism bears much in

resemblance to the similar critiques leveled by mid-century continental phenomenology—

indeed, he has been compared to Merleau-Ponty (Hamrick, 1999); (2) his vision of scientific

practice has exceeded the scope of early phenomenology and has motivated that latter’s

subsequent revision (e.g., Merleau-Ponty, 1956-57/2003); and finally, Whitehead is currently

being used as inspiration for developing transdisciplinary programs of science (e.g., Stenner,

2008; Stengers, 2012; etc)—directions that the present project will investigate from the vantage

point of psychology.

Psychology is the scientific discipline that stands the most to gain from nature’s

conciliation. Indeed, conciliation between modern science and humanism is psychology. There

is a precedent for the impact that phenomenology has on psychology—indicated specifically by

Husserl (1931/2002; 1970), Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962, 1942/1963), and Paci (1972).

Moreover, the ontological separation of nature into body/mind, being/thing, and subject/object

has specifically been characterized as the problem of psychology by Wundt, above. In

conclusion to the theoretical analysis of nature’s conciliation through Whitehead & Merleau-

Ponty, three methods of inquiry into the phenomenological psychophysical sub-objective event

will be explored. The first corresponds to the two elements of Fechner’s (1859/1966) classical

psychophysical project (“inner” and “outer” psychophysical poles). The “outer” refers to the

typical psychophysical experimental protocol with the addition of intentionality; the “inner”

refers to the neuropsychological processes that occur as Gestalt events. Their mutual

consideration is phenomenological psychophysics (Section IV). The second two methods trace

16

the possibility of psychophysical event that does not require the intentional participation of a

human—that is, a posthuman psychology. The first is the alien phenomenology of Bogost

(2012). Alien phenomenology is used to explore the possibility of a posthuman subject by

considering the expansion of human subjectivity through social media. It considers whether a

case can be made for a phenomenology of a nonhuman subject (Section V). And finally, Section

VI considers whether a case can be made for a psychology of objects or, following Harman

(2002/2006), an Object-oriented Psychology.

Project Outline

Once again, the purpose of the present project is in understanding and investigating

nature’s conciliation. It has been argued that any such conciliation is necessarily also a

psychology. Much work has been done in the 20th century in the accomplishment of this goal.

This has primarily included the recognition of the integral role played by the subject in scientific

inquiry. This achievement is not presently in question. What is presently called for is a similar

recognition of the role played by the object in scientific inquiry. This requires removing objects

from the cobwebs and mothballs of 19th century mechanical-objective realism and allowing them

to participate in the reciprocal sub-objective event of interrelating that makes up the flesh of the

world. The 19th century maintained a mechanistic ontology of discrete physical objects with no

room for the subject (save mysticism). The 20th century witnessed the breakdown of the

mechanistic ontology in physics and physiology; it also witnessed the emergence of the subject.

Still tied to the notions of linear causality, physics amended 19th

century realism to allow for a

greater degree of unpredictability in singular events (Schrödinger, 1944/1967). This was also the

case in the physiological sciences. The new principle for understanding these unpredictable

objective relationships is probability. Untethered to 19th century mechanism, the sophistication

of subjective inquiry developed rapidly and impressively. Subjects were free to mingle with and

17

be transformed by objects. By calling the attention of phenomenology toward objects, the

intention is not in returning to a 19th century brand of realism. Phenomenology has little to learn

from modern physics. It is contemporary physics that may now benefit from phenomenology.

Indeed, Rosen (2008) argues that quantum physics must utilize the insights of phenomenology in

order to escape the unidirectional “subject-in-space-before-object” model. The present project

calls for a transformation of objectivity no less dramatic than that experienced by the 20th

century

subject. The phenomenological subject combines with the phenomenological object to create

phenomenological psychophysics.

Chapter Two: Literature Review. The first part of the literature review considers the

historical terrain of nature’s bifurcation—that is, its separation or division into disparate parts

which Whitehead hoped to see conciliated. This begins with the problem of nature’s bifurcation

as viewed by Whitehead (1920/2012; 1938/1958) and the consequences of this are compared

with those observed by Heidegger (1927/1962). This bifurcation is traced back twenty-five

centuries to the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers. It is worth noting that the present project does

not aim at a return to the 5th century BCE in conciliating nature’s bifurcation; indeed, the

conciliation of a rent nature will bear no resemblance to a pre-bifurcated nature. The brief

history of bifurcation in Western metaphysics is followed by an analysis of the modernist

conception of nature. This has been discussed above as 19th

century mechanical-objective

realism. The modernist conception of nature is criticized on the grounds of its failures

mentioned previously, though an emphasis is on its neglect of the subject. Merleau-Ponty (1956-

57/2003) provides a survey of this shift in the conception of nature that occurs at this time in his

course titled Nature. Appropriately, the 19th century conception of nature is termed “modern,”

and its 20th century revision is termed “humanist.” The latter conception is demonstrated by

18

Merleau-Ponty’s own work, as well as that of his intellectual forefathers and foremothers. The

“humanist” revision of the “modern” conception of nature is found deficient insofar as it reserves

a special place for the human. Once again, Merleau-Ponty (1942/1963) may be viewed as an

example of this. Merleau-Ponty employs Whitehead’s process philosophy in the conclusion of

this course in what I have termed the proposal for nature’s conciliation.

The second part of the literature review considers the impact of nature’s bifurcation on

psychology. This includes the early project of psychology, outlined above, in terms of

Whitehead’s notion of vicious bifurcation. In psychology, the vicious bifurcation wrought by a

modernist conception of nature may be found in behaviorism which neglects, in principle, the

role of subjectivity. Furthermore, the lamentations against the modernist project in psychology

which began with James (1899/1962) are found extending into the 21st century. It is enough to

suggest that this narrow project of psychology has persisted to the present day. A second and

more recent bifurcation has also been indicated; it is that wrought by humanists. The problem of

a humanist bifurcation is two-fold: in some cases, subjectivity has been limited to a very

particular brand of subjects—namely, human subjects; and also in some cases, the attention

given to subjects has been at the expense of objects—that is, subjects are given a place over and

above objects. In each of these cases, the humanist vicious bifurcation limits the possibilities for

psychological subject matter. This may be seen even within the traditionally human subject who

has been denied certain experiences that fall outside of the definition of human—e.g., the

development of a romantic interest in another person that has been mediated exclusively by

social technology.

Chapter Three: The sub-objective event of experience. Whitehead (1920/2012,

1929/1978, 1933/1967) and Merleau-Ponty (1942/1963, 1945/1962, 1948/2004, 1964/1968) are

19

used to describe the event of experience which is the subject-matter of psychology. It is argued

that subject-ness and object-ness are contingent to the event of experience and not the reverse.

Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) describes this relationship as sentient-sensible; Whitehead

(1933/1967) describes this relationship as prehending-prehended. Both describe the coming

about of a new event (i.e., experience) out of antecedent events. Experience is the unification of

otherwise disjunct events, any it is only as a consequence of the unifying event of experience that

subject-ness becomes differentiated from object-ness. Thus, the sub-objective event is a single

unity and cannot be divided into disconnected parts.

This seems to contradict Merleau-Ponty’s (1942/1963) claim that there are orders which

participate unequally in nature. At first glance, Merleau-Ponty seems to be arguing that event-

entities are limited in the relationships they can have—thus, some events are more likely to

become subjects than are others. This is not the case since the sequence of events has been

confused. It is not the case that subjects combine with objects to create an experience; it is in an

experience that an event becomes a subject along with another event-object. Subject and object

follow the event of experience. After constructing the hierarchy with careful attention to the

evidence for their differences, these examples will subsequently be used to defend the collapse

of, or conciliation between, these boundaries (Goldstein, 1934/1995, Mazis, 2008; Rosen, 2008;

Stapp, 2011; Whitehead, 1929/1978, 1938/1958, 1920/2012).

Section I: Experiencing subject. By borrowing Merleau-Ponty’s (1964/1968) notions of

flesh and reversibility, one finds that the two sides of the subject-object relationship fold over

and criss-cross to such a degree that categorizing either side as subject or object becomes

impossible. This provides the first examples of the sub-objective event. The emphasis here is on

the nature of knowledge: is it first-personal, indicating the subject or third-personal, indicating

20

the object? The unidirectional relationship between subjects and objects, problematized by

Whitehead (1929/1978, 1933/1967) as the knower-known relationship which suggests that

subjects stand over and above their objects, has been replaced by an expanded version which

requires the participation of the object. Subjects and objects are understood to relate to one-

another through prehension—a word introduced by Whitehead that applies equally well to

traditional subjects and their objects, allowing for greater flexibility given the reversibility that

Merleau-Ponty has observed. Subjectivity may then be found extending beyond the traditionally

human subject. This is important because it places humans within nature instead of without. As

a part of nature, the uniquely human processes are understood to extend to other natural

phenomena as well. These processes include individuality, consciousness, and sentience. An

argument is made that these uniquely human characteristics extend to the rest of nature. What

emerges is a notion of subjectivity that does not require that the orthodox human subject be

segregated from nature.

Section II: Objects of Experience. This section aims at utilizing Whitehead’s process

philosophy in order to demonstrate the space for a sophisticated realism in phenomenological

thought. This argument runs counter to the precedent set against the mutual consideration of

Whitehead and Heidegger (Stenner, 2008; Shaviro, 2012) and the claim that phenomenology

assumes a de facto anti-realist position (Meillassoux, 2003/20012; Harman 2011). While an

analysis of Merleau-Ponty’s (1945/1962) implicit realism is included, Heidegger’s (1927/1962)

analysis of equipmentality is of primary focus. Following Harman’s (1997/2010, 2002/2006)

lead, Heidegger’s analysis of equipment is considered through a lens of Whitehead’s process

philosophy. In this analysis, Heidegger’s analytic of Dasein may be found extending to objects

as well. This suggests an ontological depth to objects that is traditionally denied by

21

phenomenology. When extended beyond the role of the subject, phenomenology may be used to

consider the unique role that objects play in the sub-objective event.

Section III: The Sub-objective Event. In Fechnerian psychophysics, modern physics is

used to inform the science of mind. At present, the 19th century direction of this relationship is

reversed. It is no longer the psychological sciences that stand to benefit from physics but the

other way around. Now psychology, specifically phenomenological psychology, can be used to

address the still-mechanized conception of Euclidean and non-Euclidean spaces. The

reversibility of flesh that is characteristic of conciliated nature is anomalous to contemporary

physics, and the latter is incapable of appropriately modeling it. By applying the insights from

phenomenology to psychophysics (in non-Euclidean space) and neuropsychology, the

probabilistic mechanical relationships between physical bodies are exchanged for the chaos

which is characteristic of quantum uncertainty. Out of chaos, Prigogine and Stengers (1984) tell

us, order emerges. This tendency is discussed in terms of Merleau-Ponty’s (1964/1968)

dehiscence/divergence/écart of intentional unities. It is through the quantum uncertainty that

apparent opposites are found combining as actual occasions or events of experience. Whitehead

and Merleau-Ponty are used to argue for the primacy of the event—for it is only out of the event

that subjects and objects are differentiated. Rosen (2008) has used the term “sub-object” to

identify the mutually integral relationship between subjects and objects, and that has been the

adjective chosen to describe the event of psychological experience for the present work. Rosen’s

term is easily applied to the relationship between events as Whitehead (1920/2012) has indicated,

but this is not so with Merleau-Ponty1. For Whitehead, entities that are antecedent to the event

1 The contingency of the event on the differentiation between subjects and objects applies to Merleau-Ponty (e.g.,

1945/1962 and 1964/1968) as well, but an additional change would be necessary. Where Whitehead emphasizes the

retrospective nature of subject and object with the adjective “antecedent,” Merleau-Ponty uses the prefix “pre-”

before the object and subject when referring to these entities before the event in question (without which they could

22

of experience are only understood as subjects and objects after the event has occurred—that is,

“subject” and “object” refer to events in retrospect. Here Rosen’s (2008) “sub-object”

acknowledges the contingency of the event of experience on the differentiation between subject

and object. The phenomenological psychophysical sub-object is a model for understanding the

unity of nature despite its apparent duality. Rosen calls this nature’s “unity in diversity” and

Dillon (1988/1998) calls this “identity-within-difference.” This model allows for limited

mechanical models of explanation as well as the possibility for their breakdown without

contradiction. In this manner, contemporary physics might finally escape 19th

century

mechanical-objective realism. Save scientific nostalgia, there is little evidence to support a

universe that is static and unchanging most-of-the-time (except for the few instances when its

breakdown leaves physicists stymied). The phenomenological psychophysical particle will

enjoy the same range of being/becoming reversibility that has been extended to subjects and

objects throughout the duration of this project.

Chapter Four: Methods for investigating the sub-objective event of experience. The

remaining sections will comprise Chapter Four and will explore the possible methods of

exploration for the sub-objective event of experience.

Section IV: Phenomenological Psychophysics. The first method describes the sub-

objective event of experience as a phenomenological psychophysical event. This is defended by

returning to Fechner’s (1859/1966) proposal for psychophysics in which he explores its inner

and outer forms. Outer psychophysics may be found in the classical perceptual psychophysical

never be acknowledged as such). Additionally, Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) acknowledges their mutual interaction in an experience by separating out the root “-ject”—e.g. “sub-ject” and “ob-ject.” If following Merleau-Ponty’s

nomenclature, this section might refer to the “sub/ob-jective event of experience.” As with the capitalization of the

term “nature,” Whitehead’s tendency has been followed throughout the duration of this project whenever it is found

to differ from Merleau-Ponty’s tendency. An investigation of the consequences for this arbitrary selection protocol

exceed the scope of this project, but merit further consideration.

23

studies for which Fechner was famous. Inner psychophysics had been largely ignored in

Fechner’s day, so I have made a case for what it might look today based on his hypothesis for it

over 150 years ago. In phenomenological psychophysics, experience transpires between two

events during which each event takes on the character of prehended or prehending, object or

subject, physical or psychical. The new event cannot be traced to either object or subject, yet the

integrity of the event requires both. It is in this manner than an event of experience is

psychophysical in nature. I also provide an argument that all psychophysical events—inner or

outer—are necessarily also phenomenological.

After discussing the phenomenological psychophysical sub-object, this event is traced out

in psychophysics proper. Fechner’s (1859/1966) model for classical psychophysics is followed

closely for this. He explains that psychophysics may be equally explored from an “inner”

(psychical) focus or an “outer” (physical) focus. That psychophysics has been chiefly concerned

with the sense-perception of external stimuli, Fechner explains, is because those were the tools

available at the time. Horst (2005) explains that even classical psychophysics (with the

physicalist bent) requires a phenomenological component and cannot proceed without this.

From this a two by two model of phenomenological psychophysics emerges. Following

Fechner, psychophysics may first be divided up into “inner” and “outer”—these I have

interpreted as internal/external to the human subject. And within each of these there is a physical

and a phenomenologically psychological pole. These are the four foci of phenomenological

psychophysics: 1) with outer one first finds the physical stimuli—this is the object of classical

psychophysics; 2) with outer one also finds the intentional object of phenomenological

perception; 3) with inner one first finds the physiological neurological processes without which

perception could not occur; 4) with inner one also finds the intentional subject of

24

phenomenological perception. It is argued that each of these processes may be understood

through the phenomenological sub-objective event.

Section V: Human science and alien human science. An argument is made for a

research program that investigates the posthuman subjectivity exemplified by the dynamic

technology of social media. It is determined whether or not an event of experience which does

not include that subjective participation of a human is possible. As an example of social media,

the “Like” button of Facebook may be found transforming sociality in particular ways, and

sociality may be found transforming the “Like” button in particular ways. The key to

understanding the dynamic sub-objective event with regards to a social network function is to

understand the latter as an embodied technology—one particularly available for human

interaction. Bogost’s (2012) alien phenomenology is adapted to fit the phenomenological

psychophysical sub-objective event by emphasizing the interactive and dynamic capacities of the

“Like” function. The transformation of sociality may be seen in the increased mediation of

technology for purposes of communication and contact. Bogost’s method is defended by an

argument for the phenomenological embodiment of technological software and hardware. The

conclusion is that there cannot be a non-anthropomorphic and non-speculative investigation of

nonhuman subjective experience.

Section VI: Object-oriented psychology. A summary of the psychology of the

posthuman subject concludes the dissertation, and this is compared to the emergent speculative

realist “Object-oriented Ontology” (Harman, 2002/2006, 2011). While much fanfare has

surrounded the possibility of an object-oriented psychology, this has not yet been formally

proposed. A case for its construction will be made with reference to the theoretical defense of

posthuman psychology and the discussion of its methodological tools. This is a task for which

25

Whitehead (1929/1978) is uniquely suited. He argues that such a speculative enterprise is

precisely the practical purpose served by metaphysics. This psychology is considered within the

dialogue of object-oriented ontology which, incidentally, has been consulted throughout the

duration of the present project. When outlined, an object-oriented psychology does away with

anything resembling psychology, and therefore fails to accomplish its task. Psychology may be

understood as an ecology or ethology, but this relationship cannot be reversed without losing the

meaning of psychology. Whether objects have psychological experience—per Whitehead’s pan-

psychism (Hartshorne, 1977) remains to be seen. Any attempt to study such events as

psychological in nature can be nothing more than speculative anthropomorphism.

Limitations

The present project is necessarily restricted in scope in three primary ways. In the first,

the depth and breadth of psychological inquiry will not be explored. This primarily excludes the

applications of Whitehead and Phenomenology for clinical psychology. Fortunately, this

dissertation has already been written (Moss, 1995), and has been briefly summarized above.

Second, while phenomenology has been implicated as a whole movement in continental

philosophy, the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty will receive the majority of the attention

throughout this project. And finally, while Whitehead has been consulted across the great

majority of his work, the majority of attention has been given to his first analysis of nature—

Concept of Nature, and his latest work on science and philosophy—Adventures of Ideas.

Another topic that this project neglects is that of transpersonal psychology. Whitehead has been

found to be an insightful resource in straightening out some of the metaphysical problems that

have plagued transpersonal psychology (Buchanan, 1996). The aim of the present project does

not include the applications to clinical or transpersonal psychologies.

26

Also, the present project does not argue that the phenomenological psychophysical sub-

objective event provides the foundations of the only Whiteheadian psychology. Indeed, Stapp

(2011) may be found using Whitehead to defend a neuropsychology (described in Section IV).

This also goes for the Whiteheadian proposal of an object-oriented psychology (Section VI):

future scholars are still free to apply Whiteheadian theory in the construction of a (hopefully)

more informative and insightful object-oriented psychology.

While this project proposes methods of empirical investigation, no data has been gathered

in order to test their explanatory efficacy or insight. The defense of these methods remains at the

level of theory. This is particularly consequential in the proposals of alien phenomenology and

object-oriented psychology where it is argued that these methods remain at the level of theory

and are thus incapable of being investigated empirically.

The proposal for psychology that is developed through these pages emphasizes the roles

of subject and object that unfold through the event of experience. While social context is not

explicitly addressed, it is implied as it is a contextual factor. Whitehead (1933/1967) argues for

the possibility of multiple overlapping and interacting events in the creation of a new sub-

objective event of experience such that other event-contingencies are just as important as the

emergent subject and object. This is to say that the social context is just as important as

producing the experiencing subject as is the object of experience. Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962)

provides a similar allowance when he explains that all present entities within a context are given

in a perception (of a lamp, e.g.). Additional chapters could certainly be added to articulate the

role of social context in the event of experience, but the scope has been limited to those areas

outlined by Wundt (1897) which double as the fundamental units of Western metaphysics.

27

And finally, the present project will not have the advantage of concluding after the first

international “Whitehead Psychology Nexus” conference, which will take place this summer in

Avignon, France.

28

CHAPTER TWO:

NATURE, A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

It could be one of those little games journalists play on television talk shows

about books: “Who was the greatest philosopher of the twentieth century whose

name begins with W?” Most learned people in America would answer

“Wittgenstein.” Sorry. The right answer is “Whitehead”—another philosopher

whose name begins with W, to be sure, but one who is vastly more daring, and

also, unfortunately, much less studied. … He also suffers from the terrible stigma

of having indulged in metaphysics, something one is no longer supposed to do

after the edicts of the first “W”…. (Latour, in Stengers, 2011, p. ix)

The present project aims at overcoming what Whitehead has termed the vicious

bifurcation of nature (1920/2012, 1929/1978, 1938/1958). This occurs when nature is first

bifurcated—for example, divided into objects and processes or things and their being. The

vicious bifurcation takes place when one of these is granted ontological privilege over the other.

Consonant with continental thinkers (Husserl, 1970, 1931/2002; Heidegger, 1927/1962, 1977;

Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962; 1942/1963), Whitehead has introduced the term to indicate the

vicious bifurcation wrought by modernity, which he finds in favor of material reductionism.

Whitehead (1920/2012) explains,

We are so trained, both by language and by formal teaching and by the resulting

convenience, to express our thoughts in terms of this materialistic analysis that

29

intellectually we tend to ignore the true unity of the factor really exhibited in

sense-awareness. (p. 39)

Whitehead finds that nature gets fitted into material abstractions and the experiences from which

they are taken—that is, things and processes. Moreover, the privileging has been in favor of the

material abstraction of nature and to the neglect of the more complicated process-form.

Provided that it is maintained that nature does not exclusively comprise discrete things,

then abstraction remains a helpful procedure for projects of understanding an otherwise

complicated interrelation of processes—which Whitehead has termed “events” (1938/1958,

1920/2012; Heidegger, 1989/2012; Merleau-Ponty, 1964/1968). “Vicious bifurcation” occurs

when the abstracted things are privileged over, and eventually replace, the complicated processes

from which they have been taken. This amounts to a focus on what Whitehead has called

“lifeless nature.” The lifeless conception of nature is the one that has been taken up by the

logical empiricists and has received the most attention from modern natural science. The living

conception of nature has been taken up by the margins of modernistic thinking and as such has

often been conflated with mysticism. The problem, as Whitehead observes, is that living nature

and lifeless nature stand in opposition to one another: “Thus the science of nature stands opposed

to the presuppositions of humanism. Where some conciliation is attempted, it often assumes

some sort of mysticism. But in general there is no conciliation” (1938/1958, p. 178).

The early project of phenomenology might be understood as counter-argument to the

“vicious bifurcation” characteristic of modern science and its philosophy. Indeed, it has initiated

the unification of these now separated constituents of reality—things and their being. With

Husserl (1931/2002; 1970), the problems of material reductionism are demonstrated and the

duality of subject and object are unified phenomenologically; with Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962),

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objects and experience are found mutually unfolding in the embodied subject; and with

Heidegger (1927/1962), static ontic-being makes way for dynamic ontological-Being. Counter

to the reigning positivistic scientific approach of logical empiricism, early phenomenology offers

up the human-being as the nexus through which one finds radical empiricism, inter-subjectivity,

and ontological hermeneutics, respectively.

Compare the attempts of early phenomenology to mend “vicious bifurcation” as it is seen

in the mid-twentieth century to the proposal that Whitehead (1938/1958) has for doing so: “The

doctrine that I am maintaining is that neither physical nature nor life can be understood unless we

fuse them together as essential factors in the composition of ‘really real’ things whose inter-

connections and individual characters constitute the universe” (p. 205). While the project of

early phenomenology has managed to “fuse together” subject and object into the imperious unity

of human subjectivity, for some there still remains the trappings of ontological privilege

(Merleau-Ponty, 1964/1968; Barbaras, 1991/2004; Harman, 2002/2006). Where it was earlier

explained that “vicious bifurcation” had been wrought at the hands of Logical Empiricism and in

the service of ontological primacy of objectivity, phenomenology has corrected this balance by

replacing the object with the subject—consciousness, resulting in the ontological primacy of

subjectivity. Thus a new level of “vicious bifurcation” emerges, one that is evident in Merleau-

Ponty’s (1942/1963) classification of the orders of life which places humans at the top. While

eminently impactful in the practice of the physical and social sciences, this response to “vicious

bifurcation” produces new problems. Despite the extent to which early phenomenology has

modified the practice of science, arguments have been made that these metaphysical

modifications are insufficiently radical. Moreover, they remain within an ontological dualism.

For example, Husserl has been criticized for drawing too sharp a line of demarcation between the

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inner and outer horizons of noetic objects (Dillon, 1988/1998); Merleau-Ponty has been accused

of privileging the subject and consciousness with an insufficiently radical approach (Merleau-

Ponty, 1964/1968, 1956-57/2003; Barbaras, 1991/2004), and Heidegger has been found being

anthropocentric and unnecessarily polemical (Shaviro, 2012), and given to dogmatic humanism

(Harman, 2002/2006). What Whitehead had indicated is a fusion of “living” and “lifeless”

natures into a togetherness that recognizes their mutual essentiality as factors whose “inter-

connections and individual characters constitute the universe.” For the remainder of the project,

this inter-connecting of mutually essential singularities which unfold in events will be referred to

as nature.

Contrary to prevailing opinions, which will be mentioned below, I maintain that

phenomenology is sufficiently radical in its attempts to mend the “vicious bifurcation” that has

characterized the practice of modern natural science. To be sure, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and

Heidegger may be read in the manner by which they have been previously characterized—

indeed, many times this has been indicated in reflections on their own work. However, by

concluding one’s consideration of the depth of insight phenomenology provides would require

that one commit the same polemic of which phenomenology has been accused (see Shaviro,

2012). Instead, they will here be considered in terms of the more radical conciliation of nature

that Whitehead has indicated—one that recognizes the complicated inter-connectedness of

mutually essential constituents of experience: Natura naturata and Natura naturans; subject and

object; physis and logos. In doing so, a transdisciplinary phenomenological psychophysics

emerges. By considering nature trans-disciplinarily, a case is made for the loss of the

anthropocentric subject; self-reflective consciousness loses ontological primacy and is replaced

by the psychophysical sub-objective event of experience (Whitehead, 1929/1978; Heidegger

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1989/2012; Fechner, 1859/1966); linear causation collapses into reciprocal causation (Deleuze,

1970/1988; Spinoza, 1669/2000; Harman, 2005); and subjects and objects are replaced by flesh

(Merleau-Ponty, 1964/1968; Hamrick, 1999). Furthermore, when considered thus, Merleau-

Ponty’s (1942/1963) hierarchical orders of life may be refashioned onto a flat plane of

immanence that speaks of physical, vital, and human orders with the same vernacular: “event,”

“flesh,” and nature. The immanent becoming of nature may then be used to understand an

interdisciplinary psychophysics of the event—for instance, a neurophenomenology that can

anticipate the benefits of considering phenomenology and neuroscience mutually.

To continue the conversation, the exemplar of “social media,” specifically Facebook, will

be described in Section V. Since this is exceedingly foreign to the dictates of anthropocentric

human-science and mechanistic modern science, the project will aim at a brief case for the

natural, embodied architecture of social networking, and an example of the latter's

phenomenological exploration. It will first be situated within the modernist and humanist

conceptions of nature that have characterized contemporary scientific practice (as in Merleau-

Ponty's course notes from Collége de France titled Nature). Maintaining naive realism, the

modernists would understand social networking as a specifically human technology that can be

used by humans for definite, if limited purposes. For the ease of discussion, this can be

understood as an enlarged social surface area for enhanced sociality. Given the modernist

assumptions, the difference between persons who are plugged in and those who are not may be

understood exclusively in terms social surface-area--the former enjoys one that is far more broad

and connected. The colleagues at MIT that Turkle (2011/2012) fit this mold. Again, modernists

understand a simple and beneficial uni-directional relationship of cyber-technology for humans.

The humanists, on the other hand, refuse to allow the modernists such a clean uni-directionality

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to the relationship between social network and its users. The former is not merely additive to the

latter. Instead, there is a far more sophisticated reciprocal relationship between social network

and user—the latter shapes the former and the former, the latter. Given the consequences of the

bi-directional relationship between humans and cybertechnology, the humanists wring their

hands with indignation at the inhumanity thus wrought. Turkle's (2011/2012) and Lanier (2009)

are examples of this. Again, humanists understand a sophisticated bi-directional relationship

between cyber-technology and humans; moreover, given their principled veneration of humanity,

humanists decry the dehumanization at work.

The present project concludes with a proposal for an inquiry into the event of social

networking (Section V). As an event, the social-network-user (subject) is changed in ways that

resemble the network (object), and the network is changed by its users. Social networking is the

event through which one can come to understand the user and network. Giorgi (2012) has

proposed a well-known phenomenological psychological method for understanding the

experiencing subject. Bogost (2012) has suggested the method of alien phenomenology for

considering the dynamic processes of non-human objects; alien phenomenology fits within an

emergent continental philosophy that has called itself Speculative Realism (Bryant, Srnicek, &

Harman, 2011). At risk will be seeing what happens when social networks—that is, objects of

experience) are understood on the same plane of sub-object relations as the experiencing

subjects. That is it to say that we would like to view it as an emanation of nature, that has

subsequently been added to Nature (Whitehead, 1929/1978, p. 21). With this exceedingly novel

approach to social network technology, much work will be in its apt articulation. It subsequent

investigation will emphasize embodied technology (Mazis, 2008). This will be done by

considering the limitations and capacities of RAM, tracking cookies, software, desktop icons,

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and touch-screen apparati as they mediate, moderate, and transform contemporary sociality in

unique and idiosyncratic ways.

In Western metaphysics, nature’s bifurcation can be traced back twenty-five centuries to

Plato’s interpretation of the Stoics. Regardless of who is responsible, the history of dualism in

Western philosophy is vast. The present project does not aim at going back to a time before

nature has been rent in two, nor does it maintain that this split may be mended. Indeed, the

conciliation of nature that is called for does not suggest that dualities may be collapsed into

unities. Consequences of Plato or not, these dualities will remain—however, it will be shown

that the separation of entities, events, and occasions into categories proves impossible. In the

present literature review, the history of nature’s bifurcation will be reviewed. Since it will be

maintained that nature’s bifurcation is impossible to avoid, the instances of its “vicious

bifurcation” will be emphasized. Two broad examples of this are considered in detail following

Merleau-Ponty’s (1956-57/2003) history of Nature. They are the modernist and humanist

conceptions of nature, which neatly map onto Whitehead’s (1938/1958) terms “modern science”

and “humanism”—aspects of nature he has found separated.

Physis: Nature’s First Bifurcation.

The tendency to bifurcate nature may be traced back to Plato who misunderstood the

agreement between Heraclitus and Parmenides. “It was here”, as Heidegger has shown, “that

western metaphysics began. It was also here that the forgetting of being occurred” (Seidel, 1964,

p. 30). Both Heraclitus and Parmenides, when referring to nature, said “physis” (“nature”).

Parmenides said physis the thing

while Heraclitus said physis the process

; these two forms of the term

nature may also be understood in their Latin equivalents: natura naturata (nature natured) and

natura naturans (nature naturing). Both men understood that reality was both a thing and a

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process, and saw no point in deciding which was the most correct. Here one finds no vicious

bifurcation where a process is forced into a thing or the reverse; this would only occur were one

inclined to decide whether nature were either thing or process. Seidel explains, “Being reveals

itself to the Greeks as physis, but both as the emerging dominance which abides and as the

appearing appearance. In Heidegger’s view there is no opposition between appearance and being

for the Greeks” (p. 35). Emphasis has been added to Seidel’s words in order to indicate a

fundamental ontological distinction between the pre-Socratics (who consider nature in terms of

both/and) and with Plato onward (who have considered nature in terms of either/or).

When Plato heard the dissimilarity between the physis spoken by Heraclitus and

Parmenides, he chose to decide which nature was the real one. This task has characterized the

history of Western metaphysical thought. There has been a privileging of the really real—that is,

the question of what actually is. “As Heidegger has said, metaphysics says that it is interested in

being, but it is rather things that it takes, or rather mis-takes, for being. This has been the tragedy

of [Western] thought” (p. 40). Heidegger does not explain that the problem is in the antinomy of

Nature as a thing and a process—no reconciliation is necessary here; the problem only emerges

when one is mistaken for the other.

Human beingthe thing

and human beingthe process

together form a unity of being human, not a

duality where one is right and the other wrong. This both/and unity may be understood through

the recognition that for the pre-Socratics, “physis and lόgos were intimately united” (p. 44).

Seidel explains that lόgos had originally meant “collection, the happening of uncovering, of

revelation, of truth”; but has eventually come to mean a “statement in the sense of correctness or

rightness, the exact opposite of the place of truth” (p. 44). That is to say, a statement is either

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right or wrong; it can never be both right and wrong. This, Seidel claims, is “the exact opposite

of the place of truth.”

Parmenides and Heraclitus both say physis. The former has in mind a thing; the latter, a

process. Their apparent disagreement only occurs in the absence of lόgos, which Seidel explains

could be understood as a collective uncovering of truth. Indeed, the observations of each man

come together in service to lόgos. However, by separating lόgos from physis, the underlying

theme of collective truth is lost and these men are suddenly found to be at odds with one another.

“For after the pre-Socratics the question as to what being may be is no longer ‘What is the

being?’ but rather, ‘what is the thing?’ And ultimately it becomes a mere questioning after the

‘thingliness’ of things” (p. 44). Seidel echoes Heidegger in his conclusion: “Plato drove a wedge

between things and being, between things and their being. He put them in different places as

well” (p. 47).

Thus, beginning with Plato, it has been customary to separate nature into things and

processes. Aristotle has subsequently capitalized on this by erecting an entire system of

categorization of things and processes called logic. One cannot categorize a process without it

first being abstracted. With logic one can construct proofs and identity statements without ever

going to a concrete experience. Sentences like “if a, then b” are logically sound, even though a

and b are propositions that do not stand for anything in particular. What is important to

understand about Aristotelian logic is that since its inception, it has become perfectly normal,

even beneficial, to deal exclusively with abstractions. As Whitehead (1938/1958) observes,

“The disease of philosophy is its itch to express itself in the forms, ‘Some S is P’, or ‘All S is P’”

(p. 194). Moreover, it has become increasingly unfathomable to think of propositions a and ~a

(that is, proposition a and its negation) together. But this should not typify ontology.

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From onto-logi to ontology. As Seidel has indicated, Heidegger identifies the point at

which the practice of ontology shifts from a focus on “being” to a focus on “that which is.” This

is demonstrated in the shift in the ontological question from “what is the being?” into “what is

the thing?” that has been described above.

The original ontological question, answered in a two-fold way by Heraclitus and

Parmenides, has been concerned with being. Ontology can be broken up into two Greek roots:

ontos and lόgos. Ontos is a present participle denoting the process of “being.” Lόgos, as defined

earlier, is the bringing together and uncovering of truth. “-logy” is often the suffix of sciences

for precisely this reason. Together, ontos and lόgos suggest a coming together of beings and

things in the search for the truth of being. Onto-logi, if it may be respelled as such, is the process

of dis-covering or un-covering the truth about being. Moreover, there is not any suggested end

goal to onto-logi; there is no point at which the search for being might conclude; this suggests

that nature is not teleological—a topic that will emerge when Merleau-Ponty (1995/2003) is

added to Whitehead, below. The assumption that there is some end to the dis-covery of being

would require that it is finite and could thus be completely dis-covered. However, the business

of ontology seems to have shifted from this endless process of the understanding of being to the

conclusive knowledge of being-as-a-thing. Heidegger (1927/1962) writes:

Basically, all ontology, no matter how rich and firmly compacted a system of

categories it has at its disposal, remains blind and perverted from its ownmost

aim, if it has not first adequately clarified the meaning of Being, and conceived

this clarification as its fundamental task. (p. 31, emphasis original)

The project of ontology from Plato onwards, as Heidegger has explained, has been in the

service of figuring out that which being is. The inclusion of the definite “is” is profoundly

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consequential. Indeed, try and answer the question of “what is being” without producing a list of

definite things. Try and turn “is” into a process. This is as uncomfortable and troubling as trying

to think “a and ~a.” In any case, the project of ontology has since been focused on figuring out

what “being” is and, incidentally, what it is not. That is, “which abstraction is being?” or, more

simply, “what is being?”

Heidegger’s argument is that this method of practicing ontology proceeds with the

question of being already solved—namely, that it is a thing. In modern metaphysics, this has

been largely characterized by the question of whether “being” ought to be considered a material

thing (realism) or an intellectual thing (idealism)—an outer thing or an inner thing. But even this

question leaves “Being” behind. Buber (1958) recognizes this tendency when he writes: “Inner

things or outer things, what are they but things and things?” (p. 5). Indeed, the question of onto-

logi as it has been asked by the pre-Socratics is the furthest thing from modern metaphysics. To

further complicate the matter, there is the added assumption that ontos is well-known. Heidegger

explains that if “‘Being’ is the most universal concept, this cannot mean that it is the clearest or

that it needs no further discussion. It is rather the darkest of all” (p. 23).

Notice what has happened in terms of things and processes in vicious bifurcation. The

initial abstraction was a shift away of from the use of lόgos as an unending process of the dis-

covering of truth, and towards its use as a conclusive discovery of the truth. The former is a

process and the latter, a thing; naturans is replaced by naturata. To be clear, an abstraction is a

helpful tool provided that it is merely used to help inform the experience from which it has been

taken. The problem emerges when the abstraction begins to take over for, and stand in place of,

the experience entirely. As a process, onto-logi is the searching, feeling, and experiencing of

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being; as a thing, ontology is a search for being. In the former, the means of the project are

synonymous with its ends; in the latter, the means of the project are in service to its end.

Modernist Conceptions of Nature, Being

In the above discussion, Heidegger has supplied two different definitions of ontology.

The first, modeled after the pre-Socratic dialogue concerning physis, indicates that ontology is a

process where the experience of investigation is just as important as that which is investigated.

That is, ontology is equally a thing as well as a process—nature is a thing as well as a process;

natura naturata and natura naturans. When Plato places his wedge between things and

processes, a new form of ontology emerges and nature is bifurcated. Here the pre-Socratic

dialogue, originally an agreement that nature is both a thing and a process, becomes an argument

about whether nature is a thing or a process. Heidegger observes that modern ontology has

emerged as an investigation into the thing that nature is—natura naturata. Here there is no

process; nature is no longer emerging but completely emerged. The subsequent process of

discovery is merely the burden of knowledge. The latter-most definition of ontology has, to this

present epoch, remained the most dominant in understanding nature. Consequently, the

“thingliness” of nature has been privileged to the neglect of the process of nature. Heidegger

(1927/1962) and Whitehead (1938/1958) alike observe that modern science has been largely in

the service to a fixed and pre-determined nature. Heidegger calls this an “ontic” nature;

Whitehead calls this a “lifeless” nature. These both indicate natura naturata.

Heidegger’s subtle distinction between ontic and ontological. Heidegger (1927/1962)

keeps the word “ontological” when referring to the kind of inquiry process modeled after the pre-

Socratics. For the post-Platonic version of ontology, he has introduced the new term “ontic.”

While the latter term sounds unusual, it is really quite brilliant when one considers the manner in

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which post-Platonic ontology has been practiced: Heidegger has simply removed the suffix of

logos. Indeed, the process of dis-covering and searching has been removed in this conception of

ontology, leaving one with simply ontos. Once more, following Plato’s ontological wedge, ontos

is nothing more than beingthe thing

—that is, the Nature out there at which one may point. Thus,

despite never having been explicitly defined by Heidegger himself, it can be understood that

“ontological” means beingthe process

while “ontic” means beingthe thing

. Macquarrie and Robinson

(1962) provide their definitions in the translator footnotes: “Ontological inquiry is concerned

primarily with Being; ontical inquiry is concerned primarily with entities and the facts about

them” (p. 31, emphasis original). We might even understand that the practice of ontology might

include both. However, Heidegger (1927/1962) sees that present scientific investigation has

been more concerned with things than their being. He explains,

Scientific research accomplishes, roughly and naively, the demarcation and initial

fixing of the areas of subject-matter. The basic structures of any such area have

already been worked out after a fashion in our pre-scientific ways of experiencing

and interpreting that domain of Being in which the area of subject-matter is itself

confined. The ‘basic concepts’ which thus arise remain our proximal clues for

disclosing this area concretely for the first time. And although research may

always lean towards this positive approach, its real progress comes not so much

from collecting results and storing them away in ‘manuals’ as from inquiring into

the ways in which each particular area is basically constituted…--an inquiry to

which we have been driven mostly by reacting against such an increase in

information. (p. 29)

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In this passage, Heidegger contrasts the practices of ontic- and ontological- scientific

investigation. Ontic-scientific investigation is after a rough and naïve demarcation of subject

matter, and this necessarily happens prior to any actual investigation. The practice of science

when conceived this way begins and ends with information. If naturethe process

is never consulted,

then this practice is tautological. The task of ontic-scientific investigation seems directed

towards the collection of information about nature, which might subsequently be stored away in

manuals. The manuals may be understood as an abstraction of nature—tools used to organize

and understand the experience of nature. However, Heidegger here identifies a curious reversal

that has increasingly taken place: the focus of ontic-scientific investigation seems to be in service

to the proliferation of these manuals and not to the nature from which the manuals have been

derived. For example, one’s understanding of the complexity of inter-personal relationships is

not real—cannot be attributed to nature—until it has been published in manual-form. This

procedure could be called ontological abstractification understood as follows: the ontic is an

initial abstraction of the ontological and this former thing is useful in understanding the latter

process; the thing is increasingly understood to be in service to its own thingliness while the

process is increasingly ignored; finally, the process is completely replaced by information

concerning the thingliness of things. This makes the original bifurcation of nature a “vicious

bifurcation.” It is in this final stage that Heidegger and Whitehead view modern science (as do

Husserl, 1970, and Merleau-Ponty, 1942/1963).

From Heidegger’s perspective, the practice of ontic-scientific investigation seems to be

interested in the increase of these manuals. The manuals are in service only to more manuals—

that is, manuals may be written despite exclusive consultation from other manuals. Here

information produces more information—things produce things; processes come to be ignored

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almost in principle. Further investigation yields nothing more than the reproduction of itself.

However, as soon as nature is consulted, however impoverished the format, it becomes

increasingly impossible to maintain that nature comprises nothing but things and things.

Suppose a biologist knew all about the nature of an organism as it has been expressed in

manuals. She understands said organism as a thing inside and out. However, as soon as the

organism itself is consulted, the whole project of biological information-for-information’s sake

falls apart. Consonant with the themes throughout this project, when Nature must be reconciled

with its viciously-bifurcated-identity, the latter always yields. Heidegger (1927/1962) anticipates

the thrust of the present project when he writes,

The relativity theory of physics arises from the tendency to exhibit the

interconnectedness of Nature as it is ‘in itself’. As a theory of the conditions

under which we have access to Nature itself, it seeks to preserve the

changelessness of the laws of motion by ascertaining all relativities, and thus

comes up against the question of the structure of its own given area of study-the

problem of matter. In biology there is an awakening tendency to inquiry beyond

the definitions which mechanism and vitalism have given for “life” and

“organism”, and to define anew the kind of Being which belongs to the living as

such. (p. 30)

What Heidegger has in mind with respect to physics and biology will be taken up in detail in the

Part II. What is important to understand in the meantime is that each of these disciplines have

become entrenched in particular assumptions about Nature to such a degree that the Nature has

eventually been reduced the pre-ontological assumptions about it—the abstractions about nature

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have replaced the concretions of nature. However, in these two examples, Heidegger observes

that this reversal problem has actually worked itself out (naturally, as it were).

Whitehead’s distinction between living and lifeless nature. Where we have

understood that Heidegger has discerned the ontological from the ontic, so too might we

understand how Whitehead (1938/1958) has discerned living and lifeless nature. Like

Heidegger, Whitehead cautions against a science whose focus is restricted to what he terms

“nature lifeless.” He explains,

Science can find no individual enjoyment in nature: Science can find no aim in

nature: Science can find no creativity in nature; it finds mere rules of succession.

These negations are true of Natural Science. They are inherent in its methodology.

The reason for this blindness of Physical Science lies in the fact that such Science

only deals with half the evidence provided by human experience. It divides the

seamless coat—or, to change the metaphor into a happier form, it examines the

coat, which is superficial, and neglects the body which is fundamental. (p. 211)

The detrimental consequences of “Natural Science”—that is, Heidegger’s ontic-science—are

evident in the words of Whitehead. In no way does Whitehead have his arms crossed in

indignance; he is simply intent on pointing out the absence of what he understands is the most

fundamental part of Nature: the living part!

To be sure, the “rules of succession” that Whitehead sees in natural science are helpful in

understanding the life of science. But these rules are not themselves alive—they are not capable

of demonstrating enjoyment, aim, and creativity. When scientific discussion is restricted to the

rules, one is left with “the grand doctrine of Nature as a self-sufficient, meaningless complex of

facts. It is the doctrine of the autonomy of physical science” (p. 180). This includes manuals for

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the sake of still more manuals. Science takes on a life of its own, but rather than concrete

experiences, it has only a succession of facts. This would be like mistaking one’s coat for one’s

life. The coat might be a useful abstraction of the concrete process of being, but it cannot replace

the being entirely.

However, like Heidegger, Whitehead also acknowledges that even when the scientist is

intent on focusing exclusively on lifeless nature, life will still break free through the seams of the

abstractions. He explains that “a consistent positivist should be content with the observed facts,

namely insects visiting flowers. It is a fact of charming simplicity. There is nothing further to be

said upon the matter, according to the doctrine of a positivist” (p. 203). Whether focused on the

sewn garment or the bee lighting on a flower-petal, one does not find things but actual occasions

or events (Whitehead, 1933/1967). One is witness to a garment that is worn or the dance of

flower and bee. One cannot even interact with abstractions without the mediating event of

observation—the event to which the positivist must adhere and in which she must participate.

These will be discussed later as constituents of the phenomenological psychophysical sub-

objective event. Whitehead explains that here one finds the conciliation between things and

processes, living and lifeless, abstraction and concretion:

I hold that these unities of existence, these occasions of experience, are the really

real things which in their collective unity compose the evolving universe, ever

plunging into the creative advance.

…Thus the occasion of experience is absolute in respect to its immediate

self-enjoyment. How it deals with its data is to be understood without reference to

any other concurrent occasions. Thus the occasion… requires no contemporary

process in order to exist. (p. 206)

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Husserl observes a Crisis in modern natural science. The general thrust of the

criticisms directed toward modernist conceptions of nature—namely, those that presuppose

material objectivism—have been well-addressed through the work of Whitehead (1929/1978;

1938/1958), Heidegger (1927/1942; 1977), and Merleau-Ponty (1942/1963). However, it would

be difficult to maintain that any of these actual occasions argue against modern natural science

with the same conviction as that of Husserl. (1931/2002; 1970).

Whitehead and Heidegger alike have identified the problematic consequences that stem

from a fact-oriented science. Whitehead likened fact-orientation to mistaking the coat for its

owner while Heidegger likened it to the superfluousness of writing manuals for the sake of more

manuals. Husserl (1931/2002) spends a bit more time constructing this theoretical fact-centric-

world, and connects it back to the Modernist perspective from which it is issued:

This “fact-world”, as the word already tells us, I find to be out there, and also take

it just as it gives itself to me as a something that exists out there. All doubting and

rejecting of the data of the natural world leaves standing the general thesis of the

natural standpoint. “The” world is as fact-world always there; at the most it is at

odd points “other” than I supposed, this or that under such names as “illusion”,

“hallucination”, and the like, must be struck out of it, so to speak; but the “it”

remains ever, in the more comprehensively, more trustworthily, more perfectly

than the naïve lore of experience is able to do, and to solve all the problems of

scientific knowledge which offer themselves upon its ground, that is the goal of

the sciences of the natural standpoints. (pp. 55-56)

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It is apparent that Husserl is not impressed by the modernist conception of nature which

maintains naïve realism. If the consequences of maintaining such a perspective of nature are not

evident in his description above, Husserl (1970) goes a bit further in his Crisis. He explains,

Merely fact-minded science makes merely fact-minded people…. [Fact-minded

science] excludes in principle precisely the questions which man, given over in

our unhappy times to the most portentous upheavals, find the most burning:

questions of the meaning or meaninglessness of the whole of this human

existence. … Scientific, objective truth is exclusively a matter of establishing

what the world, the physical as well as the spiritual world, is in fact. But can the

world, and human existence in it, truthfully have a meaning if the sciences

recognize as true only what is objectively established in this fashion…? (pp. 6-7)

In each of these excerpts, Husserl demonstrates the lack of meaning inherent in a world that is

exclusively interested in objective scientific fact. In the first instance, the anomalies in human

perception—“‘illusion’, ‘hallucination’, and the like”—are understood to inhibit the recognition

of nature. As such, they are to be struck from experience. Husserl argues that this is tantamount

to striking the life out of nature, reducing it to mere objective fact. In the second instance, he

goes a bit further in tracing out the consequences of a “fact-minded science.” This he defines as

an institution that is in principle committed to extricating anything meaningful from experience!

In demonstrating the detrimental consequences of a materially-objective, modernist

conception of nature, Husserl also insinuates the solution that he sees. In the first excerpt, the

implication is that human perception—anomalies and all—must not only be included, but that

this must be the starting point; and in the second excerpt, the constitution of nature is understood

to come by way of meaningful human existence. In each instance, Husserl demonstrates the

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second tendency of a viciously bifurcated nature—that wrought by the humanists. Merleau-

Ponty (1956-57/2003) will be used to address this, below.

Mending the Bifurcation: Merleau-Ponty’s Historical Analysis of Nature

Merleau-Ponty’s later writings were understood to have mainly comprised a series of

unfinished notes, posthumously published as Visible and the Invisible (Merleau-Ponty,

1964/1968). More recently, however, a comprehensive record of class notes were posthumously

discovered and published under the heading Nature—the theme of a series of courses Merleau-

Ponty taught at the Collège de France (Merleau-Ponty, 1956-60/2003). As demonstrated in the

later parts of the present project, Merleau-Ponty’s later work has been integral in understanding

the depth of insights and consequences that stem from a Whiteheadian, transdisciplinary process-

psychology. Indeed, the audacity and earnestness that Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) has

demonstrated in his consideration of a radically empirical phenomenological science make his

historical analysis on Nature2 an exemplary starting point for the present inquiry into Nature.

His analysis has not proved disappointing.

While Merleau-Ponty (1956-57/2003) begins his consideration of nature by indicating its

reference received by the pre-Socratics, he proceeds in a manner different from that of

Heidegger. In his veneration of the Stoic understanding of the integral interconnection between

physis and lόgos, Heidegger may be understood as trying to return to the period before this

process was rent in two (as Shaviro, 2012, has noted). However, this conclusion becomes less

obvious after a consideration of Heidegger’s later work (e.g., 1989/2012). Merleau-Ponty (1956-

57/2003) is very clear that a return to Stoic thinking is not what is intended in establishing a

contemporary non-duality in Nature. He explains,

2Merleau-Ponty, and not Whitehead, has chosen to capitalize Nature. For the duration of the present project, I will

follow Whitehead and keep nature in the lower-case.

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Stoic meaning of the word ‘nature’ is close to… an action at a distance between

parts of the world, …of a liaison (and not of a connection of causes). But this

course is not a study of these elements, because in order to reintroduce them it is

necessary to transform them. The return to dynamism cannot be a return to

Stoicism. (p. 7)

Merleau-Ponty recognizes the importance of the insights provided by the Stoic thinkers—which

received extended attention above—yet he does not see fit to emulate them in order to reconcile

the vicious bifurcation of nature at present. If Heidegger was correct in his assessment that the

Stoics did, indeed, occupy a world that had not yet suffered vicious bifurcation, we must not

attempt to reproduce their metaphysics twenty-five centuries later. To be sure, the senselessness

of this kind of solution was not lost on Heidegger either. He explains the transition from

Medieval to Modernist metaphysics: “During the preceding fifteen hundred years [Newton’s first

law] was not only unknown, but nature and beings in general were experienced in such a way

that it would have been senseless” (Heidegger, 1977, p. 256). Similarly, the physis spoken

twenty-five centuries ago cannot simply be reintroduced, as Merleau-Ponty has explained; “it is

necessary to transform them,” the same way that Heidegger has observed the transformation of

the concepts objective and subjective during the enlightenment.

Not only is it insufficient to return to a previous achievement of a close-approximation of

a non-bifurcated or even pre-bifurcated nature, but the constructive approach provides little in

the way of simplicity. Merleau-Ponty (1956-57/2003) provides a definition of a conciliated

nature which aptly demonstrates the difficulty of the task that faces us presently.

Nature is the primordial—that is, the nonconstructed, the noninstituted; hence the

idea of an eternity of nature (the eternal return), of a solidity. Nature is an

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enigmatic object, an object that is not an object at all; it is not really set out in

front of us, but rather, that which carries us. (p. 4)

Recall how Heidegger has observed the shift in the project of ontology—that is, that it has

passed from the undifferentiated processes of physis and lόgos as a continual uncovering or

becoming of nature, and into a static actuality of a nature already natured (natura naturata).

Merleau-Ponty seeks also for an undifferentiated process of physis and lόgos, yet is careful not to

emulate the Stoics. In so doing, he outlines the project of nature’s conciliation by looking to “the

junction of ϕύσις and λόγος, because our endgoal is the series ϕύσις—λόγος—History” (p. 199),

that is, the dynamic natura naturata and natura naturans. But as has been demonstrated with the

ontological dualism from modernity onward—including Heidegger’s subtle distinction between

ontic and ontological as well as Whitehead’s observation of competing conceptions of nature—

the trend has been to keep nature separated. Conceiving of a singular nature that recognizes the

mutual integration of natura naturata and natura naturans, without privileging one over the

other, is a task that defies even the language with which it is discussed. The key, it seems, lies in

the relationship between these separated constituents of nature—naturata and naturans. The

Stoics did not have to overcome the abyss that separates things and their becoming; as such, a

contemporary conciliation of nature will look nothing like theirs. “From this point on, Nature is

made double, as naturans and as naturata. Thus, all that could be interior to Nature takes refuge

in God. Meaning finds its refuge in naturans; naturata becomes product, pure exteriority” (pp. 8-

9). This is a conception of nature that more closely resembles the ontology described by Spinoza

(1677/2000) than that of Descartes—a difference that will be discussed below in the introduction

to Part II on the sub-object, which considers causation.

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Nature is the mutual unity of naturing and natured. Their relationship is mutually

integral. They are two, but discernment between them is impossible. Merleau-Ponty provides a

useful analogy to help understand this relationship. It comes from the phenomenology of tactile

sensation, and it has received the term flesh (1964/1968). Merleau-Ponty’s analysis of flesh, the

intertwining, and the chiasm will receive extended attention in the construction of a conciliated

nature in Section I. In the meantime, a brief explication will suffice. Merleau-Ponty describes

the mutually integral relationship between sensing and sensed: the right hand, as it touches the

left hand, is both touching and touched, subject and object. However, even in itself—touching

and touched—it can never be both. These two modes are intertwined indefinitely; remove the

touching from the touched becomes impossible and vice versa. Similarly, natura naturata and

natura naturans mutually comprise nature and they are indivisibly interconnected. As soon as

one seems to have traced the boundaries between the two, one finds such a criss-crossed mess

that is more enigmatic than the undifferentiated notion with which one began. Merleau-Ponty

(1956-57/2003) explains:

The relation of naturans and naturata is no longer a one-way relation with a

singular meaning, and given the infinite as an abyss, the relation needs, in a sense,

the world. By its definition as Abgrund, it appeals to the contradictory term that it

is going to produce. Naturata is not a dead effect, and Nature is not a product.

Nature is both passive and active, product and productivity, but a

productivity that always needs to produce something else (for example, human

generation, which ceaselessly repeats without end). There is a double movement

of expansion and contraction… which never goes to the end of its movement

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except in death, and which designates the character of a relative production as

always begun again. (pp. 37-38)

Consider the most “lifeless” caricature of nature that one could brainstorm; even this would

maintain a living production at its kernel. In so far as nature comprises discrete entities, these

must be continually produced. That is, even though it could be conceived as a sum of material

entities, the necessity for continued production requires dynamism (this will be the focus of

Section II, below). This recognition of the mutual importance of “living” and “lifeless,” ontic

and ontological, being and becoming, subject and object, etc., has not been the only response to

the aforementioned modernist bifurcation of nature—that is, one that has privileged material

objectivity or natura naturata. The reasonable escape from a materialist bifurcation was to

eliminate it as ontologically primary, replacing nature-in-fact (Husserl, 1970) with nature-as-

understood with human consciousness as the medium. This has been called the humanist

conception of nature (Merleau-Ponty 1956-57/2003). While this addresses the problems that

arise when nature is bifurcated with ontological privilege given to material objectivism, it

produces a new, anthropocentric subjective reductionism. Indeed, Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968)

has even criticized himself of privileging the anthropocentric embodied subject in his

Phenomenology of Perception (1942/1964) and Structure of Behavior (1942/1963). Following

the dialectical style of Hegel, the response to modernism’s mechanical conception of Nature was

an equally dogmatic humanist conception.

Merleau-Ponty’s analysis of humanist conceptions of nature. Merleau-Ponty (1956-

57/2003) has emphasized the philosophy of Schelling as an exemplar of the humanist response to

modernism’s material objectivity. If modern conceptions of nature can be understood as

granting ontological privilege to the material world and objectivity, the humanistic response can

52

be understood to grant ontological privilege to the human world and subjectivity. Merleau-Ponty

explains Schelling’s humanism. “For Schelling… everything is I. Hence the role of the

perceived world as milieu of experience, where there is not the projection of consciousness on

everything, but rather a participation of my own life in everything, and vice versa” (p. 40). Upon

reviewing Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception, in which he introduces his

metaphysical claim of the ontological primacy of (human) perception, the influence of

Schelling’s conviction on Merleau-Ponty is impressive. While there is a definite notion of the

intertwining of personal subjectivity and the surrounding life, the nexus of nature is definitely

located in the I—the subject. Plastic flowers, wind-chimes, and precipitation are impotent to

participate in the constitution of the subject. These objects are granted objecthood as

constituents in human experience; they exist in so far as they participate in the constitution of a

subject, and only in constituting a subject. Merleau-Ponty explains,

Husserl rehabilitated the idea of Nature by this idea of jointure to a common truth

that subjects would continue but of which they would not be the initiators. All that

happens is not explained by interiority, or by exteriority, but by a chance that is

the concordance between these two givens and is assured by Nature.

Hence the second definition of Nature given in Ideas II. Nature is that with

which I have a relation of an original and primordial character, it is the sphere of

all the “objects which can be primally present not just to one subject, but, if they

are primally present to one, can be given identically as primally present idealiter

to all other subjects as soon (as these are constituted). (p. 78)

As explained here, Husserl mends the Modernist vicious bifurcation of nature by arguing against

the material-objectivist assumption of the constancy hypothesis. This ontological assumption

53

posits a world that exists once and for all and in fact; when I leave Michigan and head for

Georgia, the constancy hypothesis maintains that Michigan will remain where I left it for my

subsequent return. As such, Michigan would remain entirely exterior to me, though it would be

available to my perception. Husserl unifies subject and object by speaking of the object in terms

of the subject by whom it is perceived. Moreover, he introduces the notion that the object does

not exist only for the perceiving subject, but may be similarly be perceived across persons. The

constancy hypothesis will be discussed further in Chapters Three and Four.

In his transcendental phenomenology, Husserl addresses the aforementioned problems

that stem from a material objectivist reductionism by granting ontological primacy to

subjectivity. Having done so, he describes an inter-subjective epistemology to defend its

methodology. Insofar as one is interested in a science of the subjective, Husserl’s transcendental

phenomenology is a tremendous start. But this should not be confused with a complete system

of understanding regarding nature. Merleau-Ponty notes the limitations that Husserl himself has

indicated:

Nevertheless, Husserl is visibly embarrassed. In Ideas II, after having made these

analyses, he adds that these are only “preparatory analyses, prepared according to

the natural attitude, and that the phenomenological analysis should revoke the

naïvetés of it.”

…If philosophy begins with the natural attitude, will it ever leave it

behind, and if it could, why would it? Such are the questions that bother Husserl,

and which explain the contradictory positions that he took on the constitution of

Nature. (p. 79)

54

It is at this level that Husserl and the phenomenologists that would follow have been

accused of being just as dogmatic as the logical empiricists upon whom they have attempted to

improve. Replacing objectivism with subjectivism solves the problems of the former, but does

not succeed in conciliating nature. The specific criticisms that have been directed at

phenomenology will be outlined below. To be sure, the project of phenomenology may be

understood as an exclusively humanistic project, and a successful one at that. But they may also

be read in a manner consistent with Whitehead’s radical conciliation of nature. This will be the

focus of Part One, which emphasizes the experience in which subjects and objects mutually

participate. Here one finds no primary entity.

Before transitioning into the corpus of the present project, efforts will be taken to suggest

what a non-dual, non-bifurcated, non-anthropocentric, non-anthropomorphic nature might look

like. The insights of Whitehead (1938/1958, 1933/1967) and Merleau-Ponty (1956-57/2003)

will be used.

Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty’s conciliation nature. In his first course on nature

(1956-57/2003), Merleau-Ponty devotes some class time to Whitehead’s insights. Indeed, the

section on Whitehead provides the climax to the course that covered the Modernist and Humanist

conceptions of nature that have been outlined above. By considering these two men together, a

conception of nature emerges that escapes vicious bifurcation.

Like Merleau-Ponty, Whitehead (1920/2012) understands the compulsion to divide

nature into objects and subjects. He writes:

However, we must admit that the causality theory of nature has its strong suit. The

reason why the bifurcation of nature is always creeping back into scientific

philosophy is the extreme difficulty of exhibiting the perceived redness and

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warmth of the fire in one system of relations with the agitated molecules of

carbon and oxygen with the radiant energy from them, and with the various

functioning of the material body. Unless we produce the all-embracing relations,

we are faced with a bifurcated nature; namely, warmth and redness on one side,

and molecules, electrons and ether on the other side. Then the two factors are

explained as being respectively the cause and the mind’s reaction to the cause. (p.

32)

Indeed, it is predictable that one should find traditions devoted to the object and others

devoted to the subject. Moreover, each of these approaches has yielded a wealth of insight.

Throughout the present project and particularly when causation is considered (Section III), it will

be demonstrated that neither of these traditions should conclude their work. The focus of the

present project is not to replace objectivism or subjectivism, but to consider each from a vantage

point of nature conciliated. This would be one that does not privilege one tradition over the

other, but can recognize their mutual interdependence.

The key to getting beyond the objectivistic and subjectivistic abstractions is to avoid

referring to objects and subjects separately. Whitehead (1920/2012) prefers to unify objects and

subjects into the “events” in which they intermingle. He explains,

This long discussion brings us to the final conclusion that the concrete facts of

nature are events exhibiting a certain structure in their mutual relations and certain

characters of their own. The aim of science is to express the relations between

their characters in terms of the mutual structural relations between the events thus

characterized…. (p. 86)

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An event can be explained by reduction to objective or subjective abstractions, but these do not

exhaust the infinite complexity of the event. The “event” will be explored in more detail in Part

I, Section III where Whitehead will be considered along with Heidegger’s (1989/2012) use of

“ereignis.” For now, an example of the way in which an event can be reduced to a subjective

experience or objective thing will be used. Whitehead (1920/2012) explains:

To be an abstraction does not mean that an entity is nothing. It merely means that

its existence is only one factor of a more concrete element of nature. So an

electron is abstract because you cannot wipe out the whole structure of events and

yet retain the electron in existence. In the same way the grin on the cat is abstract;

and the molecule is really in the event in the same sense as the grin is really on the

cat’s face. (p. 88)

Or from Merleau-Ponty (1956-57/2003), who discerns events from objects:

The event is naturally opposed to the object. The pyramids. A thought which

sticks to the objects will see them as something invariable. But the pyramids are

meticulous at every moment of existence. The object is what does not pass, the

eternal, the recognizable, and the event appears only once, the unique (p. 116).

A fascinating conception of nature emerges when objective and subjective abstractions

have been collapsed into singular and impossibly complicated interconnected events. It is one

that privileges neither object nor subject; one that presupposes nothing but nature. Merleau-

Ponty (1956-57/2003) has already indicated the difficulty of such a task, and he reminds his

students that the introduction of a new term like “event” does not solve the riddle of nature. He

explains in terms of a Parisian afternoon:

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We divide the duration, during which the Louvre and the barge are given to us,

into parcels of “events,” as distant as possible. Such a form of thought is not

illegitimate, but to think that we can compose Nature from the dust of such events

is to place the cart before the horse. (p. 114)

This is to say that one will never arrive at a complete understanding of nature. This theme will

be mentioned again in the discussion on reciprocal-causation in Section III. Merleau-Ponty

recognizes that the interconnections between entities do not only occur instantaneously but

within and across events—a temporal web where linear causation folds back on itself.

We can say of the physical system that it is re-created at each moment, that it is

always new, or that it is uncreated and is identical to its past. On the other hand,

the organism is never identical with its past, or is it ever separated from it: it

continues. Duration becomes the principle of the internal unity of it. …and this

register is neither a consciousness interior to the organism, nor our consciousness,

nor our notation of time. (p. 59)

The courtyard is available just as much to take me to the Louvre as the Louvre is there so that I

may cross the courtyard. Though events may seem to unfold in a linear fashion, directed at a

particular objective or goal, this is an insufficient way to understand nature. “Although it

presents all the characteristics of a teleological production, nature is not properly teleological.

What characterizes nature is that it is a blind mechanism and that it nevertheless appears as

permeated by teleology” (p. 39). The telos of site-seeing is appropriately anthropocentric. Do

the vendors of art, food, and souvenirs litter the banks of the Seine directed by the predictability

of the tourists? Or might their congregation be understood by way of analogy to the tall grasses,

tadpoles, and beavers that predictably pop-up near moving water. By introducing a non-

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anthropocentric Nature, the meaning of events can be understood in a way beyond specifically

human importance. Merleau-Ponty explains,

The philosophy of Nature needs a language that can take up Nature in its least

human aspect, and which thereby would be close to poetry. Art is the objective

realization of a contact with the world, which itself cannot be objectivated, just as

philosophy is the discovery of an arrangement whose meaning is open. (p. 45)

Indeed, the vendors find themselves on the banks of the Seine because the latter is a powerful

element of vitality and life. Despite efforts in the first and second industrial revolutions to

manage nature in a manner such that it serves man, this control can never be absolute because

man is of nature, and not simply in it.

We are parents of a Nature of which we are also the children. It is in human being

that things become conscious by themselves; but the relation is reciprocal: human

being is also the becoming-conscious of things. Nature leads, by a series of

disequilibria, toward the realization of human being, which in turn becomes the

dialectical term of it. (p. 43)

Conciliated Nature comprises objects and subjects, beings and things, minds and bodies in a

dynamic and reciprocal process of becoming. This has been called the event, and it can be

understood in terms of Merleau-Ponty’s (1964/1968) concept of flesh. By considering Nature in

terms consistent with the use it is given by Whitehead, Merleau-Ponty (1956-57/2003) discerns

three consequences that follow:

1. The unity of events…appears as the correlate of their insertion in the unity of

thinking being.

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2. The mind must not be considered as an impartial observer of Nature: “its

awareness takes part in the process of Nature.”

3. This process of Nature… links observers together. It is what joins. … In other

words, the process of Nature, which corresponds to the unity of the sensing body,

and since the body is itself an event, makes the unity of the body, and also makes

the unity of different observers, it is also a Nature for many. There is a sort of

reciprocity between Nature and me as a sensing being. I am a part of Nature and

function as any event of Nature: I am by my body part of nature and the parts of

Nature allow for them relations of the same type as those of my body with Nature.

Whitehead tries to think causality and knowledge as two variables of the same

relation. (p. 117)

While the second and third consequences provide a great introduction to Chapter Three, the first

consequence requires a qualification. When Merleau-Ponty uses the word “thinking,” a reader

that is unfamiliar with Whitehead might suppose that he has in mind the rational process of

which homo sapiens sapiens is exclusively capable. This would be to re-iterate the humanist

conception of nature which Merleau-Ponty has introduced. To avoid the emphasis on humanity

in nature, Whitehead (1929/1978) uses the term “prehension” to discuss the relationships

between things. This term will receive more attention and explication in Section I, but a short

explanation will help disambiguate the first point made here by Merleau-Ponty. When

Whitehead uses the term prehension, he intends the participation of an object or subject in an

event. Thus, understanding or thinking qua prehension for me is the same as it would be for a

flower: I prehend the warmth of the sun on my skin; the flower prehends the sun on its petals.

When Merleau-Ponty says “unity of thinking being,” I would understand his use of “thinking” as

60

Whitehead’s “prehending.” Another precedent for “thinking” as an atelic happening might be

Heidegger’s (1966) “meditative thinking.”

The crux of a conciliated nature may be found in the middle of the third point: “I am a

part of Nature and function as any event of Nature.” Read as an example of Merleau-Ponty’s

flesh, I am an indivisible part of nature, yet I may also be taken as an object or subject of nature.

It is in this manner that one may begin to understand doctoral qualifying examinations, grocery-

store baggers, and thermal-physical sublimation. Subjects and objects are consulted—not in

sum, but in their reciprocal sub-objective relationship. Merleau-Ponty understands that “[t]he

construction of science is an explanation of simple perceived things. We must deny the

‘bifurcation of nature’ and consult both abstractions and perception” (p. 117). This mutual

consultation that founds a Process Science, Natural science, or deep eco-psychology is described

in what Merleau-Ponty calls the “philosophy of Nature:”

The unity of Nature, according to Whitehead, is grounded on this: that all Nature

is “concrescence”…. The task of a philosophy of Nature would be to describe all

the modes of process, without grouping them under certain headings borrowed

from substantialist thinking. The human is a mode just as much as are animal

cells. There is not a limit to the abundance of categories, but there are types of

“concrescence” that pass by degradation of each other. And so, in order to

describe life, Whitehead will refuse mechanism, which leads back to the routines

of Nature, but he will also refuse vitalism as too imprecise…. (pp. 121-122)

This short foray into a conciliated Nature has served as juxtaposition to the two forms of

bifurcated Nature outlined by Merleau-Ponty (1956-57/2003): modernist and humanist. What

remains for consideration is the unique role played by the discipline of psychology. Beginning

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with the early projects of Wundt (1897) and James (1890/2007), psychology has been poised to

unify the physical and the psychical—body and mind, objects and subjects. As such, a

conciliation of nature that includes the mutual interdependence of beings and things is

undeniably psychological.

Psychology, Bifurcated: Alfred North Whitehead and the Task for Psychology3

Whitehead’s theory regarding the conciliation of science and humanism finds its locus

mutually in subjective experience and the objects thus included. As such, it resembles the task

for psychology at the close of the nineteenth century. Whitehead calls this an inquiry into

“nature.” He writes,

Nature is known to us in our experience as a complex of passing events. In this

complex we discern definite mutual relations between component events, which

we may call their relative positions, and these positions we express partly in terms

of space and partly in terms of time.… [E]ach event has its position in this

structure and its own peculiar character or quality. (1920/2012, pp. 85-86)

Psychology has emerged as conciliation between rationalism and idealism. The rationalists had

developed a method based on intellectual abstraction begun with Aristotelian logic; the realists

had developed a method (logical empiricism) based on material abstraction begun with the

science of Galileo and Newton (Whitehead, 1925/1953; Heidegger, 1977). The rationalists had

knowledge and the mind; the realists had science and the body. James (1899/1962), writing for

the new discipline of psychology, defended a “science of mind” (p. 7). If ever there was an

academic discipline poised to unify the “vicious bifurcation” wrought twenty-four centuries

earlier, it was the emerging discipline of psychology. However, not two decades had passed on

3 This section has been excerpted and edited from Whitehead and Moss (in prep).

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the establishment of the new discipline and James already observes that Psychology was headed

down a blind alley of “vicious bifurcation.”

Like Whitehead, James recognizes not only the limitations imposed by the scientific

project of material and intellectual abstraction, but also how this misses out on the more

interesting yet unyielding events of Nature. He instead chooses to focus on the “more

unpretending conception of the stream of consciousness, with its total waves or fields incessantly

changing” (p. 9). He then turns to Wundt for support. James begins by quoting Wundt (1894,

pp. 121-124, in James 1899/1962):

‘Experimental observation yielded much other information about the span of

consciousness, the rapidity of certain processes, the exact numerical value of

certain psycho-physical data, and the like. But I hold all these more special results

to be relatively insignificant by-products, and by no means the important thing.’

… As I interpret it, it amounts to… a complete renunciation of the whole

business, still so industriously carried on in text-books, of chopping up ‘the mind’

into distinct units of composition or function, numbering these off, and labelling

them by technical names. (p. 10)

To combat an overemphasis on realist physicalism, James and Wundt advocate a psychology that

begins with experience. However, given the “haziness of outline” and “complications” (p. 9)

with which one finds consciousness, James seems to have more in mind than subjective

appearance. Furthermore, James and Wundt alike acknowledge that the conclusions drawn from

the procedure of abstraction are of little consequence to the project of psychology.

Vicious bifurcation wrought by modernist psychology. Whitehead’s proposal for an

enquiry into nature most certainly resembles the early proposal for the project of psychology. So

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why don’t we have an example of what Whitehead’s project might look like eleven and a half

decades after its implementation? Why is it instead being proposed that Whitehead be used to

inform psychology today in the twenty-first century? Despite the warnings issued by James in

addition to the conviction he shared with Wundt, Psychology has continued with the project of

identifying a “definite number of perfectly definite elementary mental states, mechanically

associated into a mosaic or chemically combined”—that is, it has continued with a modernist

vicious bifurcation. The continued preference for abstraction in the discipline of psychology

may be demonstrated in Bevan’s (1991) “Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the

Public Interest Award Address,” delivered at the 98th annual APA convention. He explains,

Over the years I have found a disturbingly large proportion of the papers I have

read to be trivial, some even contrived. The intellectual processes behind them

too often have lacked clarity and crispness; manuscripts have been marked by a

mindless and routine recitation of detail, more focused on submerging rather than

elevating understanding. Preoccupation has frequently been at the level of data.

… American psychology at its intellectual foundations remains at best a 19th-

century enterprise. (p. 476)

Not just any nineteenth-century enterprise, but specifically the form against which James

(1899/1962) had been arguing!

Bevan (1991) has not been alone with his expressed disappointment with the direction

psychology has taken. Toulmin and Leary (1985) have observed the manner by which Wundtian

psychology—bifurcated into “objects of experience” and “experiencing subject” has been

“viciously bifurcated” over the subsequent century of development. They write,

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[I]n some significant respects, the intellectual constraints that American

psychologists have tended to place upon themselves since Wundt—in the name of

“empiricism”—have been far more rigorous and exacting than any which Wundt

himself intended, and also far more rigorous and exacting that was ever the case

in other fledgling sciences. Neither in physics nor in biology did the introduction

of experimental procedures lead scientists to cut their diplomatic relations with

the larger philosophical debates out of which their newly defined “empirical”

questions had emerged and from which those questions had acquired their original

meaning. (p. 595)

Toulmin et al explain that experimental psychology has left behind the philosophical discourse in

which Wundt’s methods had originally been grounded. This has amounted to what the authors

have termed “The Cult of Empiricism”—the tendency to revere logical empiricism without

questioning it.

In a more recent example, Kelly (Kelly, Kelly, Crabtree, Gould, Grosso, & Grayson,

2007) shares his doubts concerning the emphasis marked by psychology as practiced in the

twenty-first century:

Our doubts regarding current psychological orthodoxy, I hasten to add, are at least

in part shared by others. There seems to be a growing unease in many quarters, a

sense that the narrowly physicalist contemporary approach to the analysis of mind

has deflected psychology as a whole from what should be its most central

concerns, and furthermore that mainstream computationalist/physicalist theories

themselves are encountering fundamental limitations and have nearly exhausted

their explanatory resources. (pp. xxi-xxii)

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The criticisms of Bevan (1991), Toulmin et al (1985), and Kelly et al (2007) are evidence that

there is a continuing trend toward a Modernist vicious bifurcation in the scientific practice of

Psychology. The present project aims at identifying the ways in which Whitehead’s hope in the

conciliation between modern natural science and humanism might be actualized.

Latour (in Stengers, 2011) has scoffed, “How can it be that America, nay, the Harvard

Philosophy Department, provided a shelter to the most important philosopher of the twentieth

century and then has utterly forgotten him?” (p. xiv). In addition to thumbing his French nose at

American philosophy, Latour observes that a dynamic, forward-thinking, and estimable Western

Department of Philosophy has apparently dispensed with a profoundly insightful thinker, leaving

nary a trace. While Latour’s faithful defense of Whitehead’s unfavorable reputation is

appreciated, I would amend the criticism slightly. Whitehead’s ideas have not been forgotten,

dispensed with, or ignored.

While nature’s vicious bifurcation has been endemic to western thinking writ large, it is

psychology that is uniquely poised to conciliate it. However, many of the attempts to do so have

resulted in what Merleau-Ponty would characterize as Humanist accounts—that is, bifurcations

that privilege anthropocentric-subjective-reductionism (also called “correlationism;”

Meillassoux, 2003/2012).

Vicious bifurcation wrought by humanist psychology. In an effort to correct the

balance in psychological emphasis, mid-century psychology turned to the emerging continental

philosophies which presented critiques of modernity. These critiques, briefly presented above,

defended the primacy of the human subject—a position that will be problematized in Sections I

and II. In psychology, this resulted in a greater epistemological emphasis on the human subject.

Humanistic psychology and human science methodology are two examples of this new focus.

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However, in some instances the emphasis on the human has been accepted in a dogmatic fashion

that in principle denies any alternative approaches. Just like Toulmin and Leary (1985) have

observed with the cult of empiricism, the tendency with dogmatic humanism is a separation of

scientific practice from its guiding philosophy. Abraham Maslow will be used to demonstrate

one such example.

In the body of his work (1962, 1966, 1969), specifically his metapsychology (1966),

Maslow may be found cutting ties with the philosophical foundations upon which his science

was built. Building off of the criticisms of a materially-centric science, Maslow has reversed the

privileging of empiricism by the latter’s repeated denigration and a privileging of a human-

centric science. From Polanyi’s (1958, 1964) critique of objectivity, Maslow has extracted a

subjectivism—a position that Polanyi’s realism does not allow. From Kuhn’s (1962/2012)

analysis of scientific revolutions, Maslow has insinuated humanist values into the “revolutionary

scientist” and empirical values into the “normal scientist.” While mid-century humanism was,

indeed, dynamic and radical (certainly when compared to the early-century preoccupation with

empiricism) the humanist’s continued preoccupation with the human has grown to be more

representative of the “normal” than the “revolutionary” scientist. In any case, this polemic

bifurcation of scientific practice is itself highly suspect. And finally, Maslow has misinterpreted

Goldstein’s (1934/1995) observation of organismic “self-actualization” to be a uniquely human

capacity. This anthropocentric mistake situates humanity at the center of the cosmos is a manner

that is reminiscent of Geocentrism.

Maslow misinterprets Polanyi’s two-fold ontological realism as a defense for

subjectivism. Polanyi’s (1958) publication of Personal Knowledge evidently had an impressive

impact on Maslow (1966). Indeed, the former was extolled in the Acknowledgements, Preface,

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and all throughout Maslow’s text. The dual epistemology that Polanyi presents is certainly in

dialectical opposition to the billiard-ball realism that had been ridiculed throughout the century

during which he wrote. Like Maslow, Polanyi criticizes the presumption that science is capable

of investigating reality in any direct way. For example, he writes that “the ideal of exactitude

has to be abandoned” (1964, p. 10). More specifically, he argues that the methods of objectivity

and probability are not as infallible as logical empiricists maintain. These, Polanyi suggests,

might be replaced with qualities no less essential to scientific inquiry—qualities he refers to as

“personal knowledge,” “intuition,” and “conscience.” This is where Maslow (1966) picks up the

idea “that scientific knowledge is ‘personal,’ that it necessarily involves judgment, taste, faith,

gambling, connoisseurship, commitment, responsibility” (p. 34, footnote).

Thus far, Polanyi has been adequately used as a source of epistemological inspiration for

the work of Maslow. The problem arises when Polanyi’s sophisticated realism is discarded for

subjectivism—that is, an epistemological defense for a singular focus on the human subject.

This, I argue, is precisely what Maslow has done when he writes:

There is no substitute for experience, none at all. All the other paraphernalia of

communication and of knowledge—words, labels, concepts, symbols, theories,

formulas, sciences—all are useful only because people already know

experientially. The basic coin in the realm of knowing is direct, intimate,

experiential knowing. Everything else can be likened to banks and bankers…

which are useless unless there is real wealth to exchange. (pp. 45-46)

Given Polanyi’s (1958) impressive and systematic critique of the epistemological foundations of

logical empirical scientific practice, added to his suggestion that all inquiry requires a personal

element, Maslow’s conclusion is understandable. Indeed, Polanyi (1964) directly implicates the

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starting point of science as one of perception. But he does so while maintaining a sophisticated

realism. He explains what is meant by “real:”

Real is that which is expected to reveal itself indeterminately in the future. Hence

an explicit statement can bear on reality only by virtue of the tacit coefficient

associated with it. This conception of reality and of the tacit knowing of reality

underlies all my writings. … If explicit rules can operate only by virtue of a tacit

coefficient, the ideal of exactitude has to be abandoned. What power of knowing

can take its place? The power which we exercise in the act of perception.

…Scientific knowing consists in discerning Gestalten that are aspects of reality. I

have called this ‘intuition’; in later writings I have described it as the tacit

coefficient of a scientific theory, by which it bears on experience, as a token of

reality. (Polanyi, 1964, p. 10)

Recognizing the confusion that the adjective personal created in his earlier work, Polanyi (1964)

has revised this to tacit. While personal might easily be attributed exclusively to the subject,

tacit maintains that it is more complicated than subjectivism and naïve realism. What remains

are the insights gleaned from Gestalt Perception Theory. Recall Polanyi’s (1958) observation

and accompanying promise that “Scientists have run away from the philosophic implications of

Gestalt; I want to countenance them uncompromisingly” (p. 3). Like Polanyi, the Gestalt

Perception Theory of Wertheimer (1938) and Köhler (1947/1957) maintains a sophisticated

realism—a reality that is available to perception through psychophysical isomorphism. The

gestalt-structure of things, as Polanyi states above, is in the aspects of reality and not in the

subject. “We know that perception selects, shapes, and assimilates clues by a process not

explicitly controlled by the perceiver” (1964, p. 11). Thus, the importance of “experience” that

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might be gleaned from Polanyi is not in one’s experience per say, but in the experience of the

thing in question. For Polanyi, essence belongs on the side of the real—the objects themselves—

and not in the subject. He compares the process of science with that of artwork by indicating this

important difference:

The process resembles the creation of a work of art which is firmly guided by [the

subject’s] fundamental vision of the final whole, even though that whole can be

definitely conceived only in terms of its yet undiscovered particulars—with the

remarkable difference, however, that in natural science the final whole lies not

within the powers of our shaping, but must give a true picture of a hidden pattern

of the outer world. (1964, p. 32)

Maslow insinuates an ethic into Kuhn’s distinction between scientists. It is understood

that the progenitors of a bourgeoning science might look to Kuhn (1962/2012) for inspiration.

Kuhn discusses the novelty, spontaneity, and creativity of the ‘revolutionary’ scientists on

grounds equal to those of the accomplished, esteemed, and exacting ‘normal’ scientists.

In the middle of the century, the ‘normal’ psychologists were the behaviorists. Maslow

was surrounded by (indeed, trained by) psychologists of the behaviorist ilk. George Miller

describes the setting of American Departments of Psychology typical of this time:

The chairmen of all the important departments would tell you that they were

behaviorists. Membership in the elite Society of Experimental Psychology was

limited to people of behavioristic persuasion; the election of the National

Academy of Sciences was limited either to behaviorists or to physiological

psychologists, who were respectable on other grounds. The power, the honors, the

authority, the textbooks, the money, everything in psychology was owned by the

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behavioristic school. Those who didn’t give a damn, in clinical or social

psychology, went off and did their own thing. But those of us who wanted to be

scientific psychologists couldn’t really oppose it. You just wouldn’t get a job. … I

would say up to the mid-‘50s that was the situation. (in Baars, 1986, p. 203)

Miller describes, almost point-for-point, Kuhn’s characteristics of ‘normal’ science. If science is

understood as the continual development of a particular paradigm—behaviorism in this

instance—then there is no escape. Behaviorists would produce academically-behaviorist-

progeny ad infinitum. But Kuhn introduces an important element to this understanding of

science:

Perhaps science does not develop by the accumulation of individual discoveries

and inventions. Simultaneously, these same historians confront growing

difficulties in distinguishing the “scientific” component of past observation and

belief from what their predecessors and readily labeled “error” and “superstition.”

(p. 2)

This is fortunate for the development for any psychology that attempts to understand that which

behaviorism had discarded as “superstition”—for example, consciousness. Watson (1930/1962)

explains,

Behaviorism claims that consciousness is neither a definite nor a usable concept.

The behaviorist, who has been trained always as an experimentalist, holds,

further, that belief in the existence of consciousness goes back to the ancient days

of superstition and magic. (p. 2)

By observing the reversal of dominant scientific belief systems throughout the history of

modernity, Kuhn maintains the validity and value for another mode of scientific exploration. It

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is a form of scientific investigation that entertains alternative explanations and sees that which

the ‘normal’ scientists might miss. Kuhn suggests that these scientists are ‘revolutionary.’ Thus,

behaviorism was the leading psychological paradigm while the ‘revolutionary’ projects of

cognitivism and humanism were underway. Kuhn explains the development of such

revolutionary projects:

In the absence of a paradigm or some candidate for paradigm, all of the facts that

could possibly pertain to the development of a given science are likely to seem

equally relevant. As a result, early fact-gathering is a far more nearly random

activity than the one that subsequent scientific development makes familiar (p.

15)

The ‘revolutionary’ scientists are thus typically more open-minded, creative, and spontaneous,

but necessarily have a difficult time establishing anything in principle. The openness and

wonder characteristic of the ‘revolutionary’ movements in science may be contrasted with the

maturity of the ‘normal’ scientists. Kuhn explains that the “Acquisition of a paradigm and of the

more esoteric type of research it permits is a sign of maturity in the development of any given

scientific field” (p. 11).

While the adjectives Kuhn has used seem to suggest that ‘normal’ scientists are vanilla

and ‘revolutionary’ scientists are Neapolitan, it is clear that each is important to scientific

exploration. Moreover, Kuhn’s analysis defends the importance of psychologists who choose to

resurrect concepts such as “consciousness” that the dominant paradigm had systematically

eliminated from the psychologist’s vocabulary. Kuhn’s appeal to Maslow is understandable.

However, instead of using Kuhn’s bi-partisan distinction between scientists, Maslow (1966)

disparages the ‘normal’ scientists as being petulant and insecure:

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To some extent, the distinction between Kuhn’s normal scientist and his

revolutionary one parallels the development from the adolescent to the adult male,

or from immaturity to maturity. The boy’s conception of what a man should be

like is more embodied in the ‘normal’ scientist, the obsessional character, the

practical technologist, than it is in the great creator. If we could understand better

the difference between the adolescent’s misconception of maturity and actual

maturity, we should thereby understand better the deep fear of creativeness and

the counterphobic defenses against it. (p. 35)

One immediately notices that Maslow has reversed Kuhn’s observation that the ‘normal’

scientist represents the form that is most mature, and has introduced his own theory of personal

development that hinges on deficiency and growth needs. As Maslow sees it, the normal

scientist—protected by estimable academic positions, privileged association ties, and reputable

academic presses—is neurotically afraid of failure. He continues, the ‘normal’ scientist is

“overobsessional… immature” and, “stressing control,” tends to

[E]xclude, to set up hurdles and to close doors, to be suspicious. He is apt to

dislike lack of control in others as well and to dislike impulsiveness, enthusiasm,

whimsicality, and unpredictability. He is apt to be cool, sober, and stern. He is apt

to prefer toughness and coolness in science to the point of synonymizing them.

(pp. 38-39)

This might be compared with Maslow’s understanding of the ‘revolutionary’ scientist. “The

actually mature man, mature not only in years but also in personality development, is, to say it

briefly, not threatened by his ‘weaknesses,’… what we would prefer to call humanness” (p. 37).

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In addition to his reversal of Kuhn’s observation of maturity in scientific practice,

Maslow has introduced a problematic psychological distinction between Kuhn’s scientists. Not

only is the ‘normal’ scientist incapable of creativity, but she is also a shallow, defensive, and

troubled person—evidently forced to use the esteem associated with the more pedantic form of

science to make up for her own personal underdevelopment. Maslow distinguishes the

‘revolutionary’ maturity with the ‘normal’ immaturity in his comparison of researchers A and B

(which match ‘revolutionary’ and ‘normal,’ respectively).

An obvious illustration supported by common sense experience might be this.

Researcher A is really fascinated with schizophrenics (or white rats or lichens).

Researcher B, however, is much more interested in manic-depressive insanity (or

monkeys or mushrooms). We may confidently expect that Researcher A will (a)

freely choose or prefer to study schizophrenics, etc., (b) work better and longer at

it, be more patient, more stubborn, more tolerant of associated chores, (c) have

more hunches, intuitions, dreams, illumination about them, (d) be more likely to

make more profound discoveries about schizophrenia, and (e) schizophrenics will

feel easier with him and say that he “understands” them. In all these respects he

would almost certainly do better than Researcher B. But observe that this

superiority is in principle far greater for acquiring experiential knowledge than it

is for acquiring knowledge about something, or spectator knowledge, even though

Researcher A probably could do a bit better at that, too. (p.51)

In review, to Kuhn’s original observation that ‘revolutionary’ scientists are more creative,

Maslow has added more mature, more patient, tolerant, intuitive, understanding, and profound

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than are ‘normal’ scientists. They are also generally better, freer, more devoted, and even more

adept when it comes to the wheelhouse of the ‘normal’ scientist, than are the ‘normal’ scientists.

Maslow limits Goldstein’s notion of “self-actualization” to the human. The final

instance of Maslow’s humanism concerns a key concept in the Humanistic Psychologist’s

lexicon: “self-actualization.” Perhaps popularized as the peak of Maslow’s (1962) hierarchy, the

term was actually introduced by a biologist by the name of Kurt Goldstein. Goldstein

(1934/1995) finds that “an organism is governed by a tendency to actualize, as much as possible,

its individual capacities, its ‘nature,’ in the world” (p. 162). From his description, self-

actualization sounds like a synonym for natura naturans—the becoming of nature. The

anthropomorphized “individual” will be discussed in Part I: Section II. Consider Goldstein’s

introduction to the term with the manner by which Maslow has taken it up.

In his review, Maslow discusses Goldstein’s biological analysis with an added element of

“will” or “intention”—it is as though the organism is agentively seeking its balance. For

example, he writes:

A damaged organism isn’t satisfied just to be what it is, merely damaged. It

strives, presses, and pushes; it fights and struggles with itself in order to make

itself into a unity again. From being a Unity, minus a lost capacity, it presses

toward becoming a new kind of Unity in which the lost capacity no longer

destroys its Unity. It governs itself, makes itself, re-creates itself. It is certainly

active and not passive. (Maslow, 1971/1976, p. 115)

Rather than split hairs between Goldstein’s introduction to the concept of “self actualization” and

its subsequent use by Maslow, I will instead provide an example from another figure from the

history of Humanistic Psychology. This will accomplish two tasks: (1) it will provide insight

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into “self-actualization” as it was introduced by Goldstein himself, and (2) it will supply an

example of nonanthopomorphism within the boundaries of Humanistic Psychology. This

suggests that the latter might continue in a non-dogmatically anthropocentric fashion.

Fritz Perls had been a medical intern of Goldstein’s, and the latter proved to be a

powerful influence on the former. The self-actualization of which Perls speaks is not of the

Maslow’s-hierarchy ilk. Goldstein (1934/1995) discusses the capacity inherent in all organisms

towards being, regardless of the level of sophistication that this requires. He sees all organisms

indiscriminately as being-towards-self-actualization. There is no “good” or “bad;” there is only

becoming. The self that becomes is one’s actualized self. Blockage of this becoming, which

Perls (1969/1972) has termed an impasse, is merely the slowing down of this becoming process.

Perls explains the varieties that this process takes:

A living organism is an organism which consists of thousands and thousands of

processes that require interchange with other media outside the boundary of the

organism. There are processes here in the ashtray, too. There are electronic

processes, atomic processes, but for our purpose, these processes are not visible,

not relevant to its existence for us here. But in a living organism, the ego

boundary has to be negotiated by us because there is something outside that is

needed. There is food outside: I want this food; I want to make it mine, like me.

So, I have to like this food. If I don’t like it, if it is un-like me, I wouldn’t touch it,

I leave it outside the boundary. So something has to happen to get through the

boundary and this is what we call contact. We touch, we get in contact, we stretch

our boundary out to the thing in question. If we are rigid and can’t move, then it

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remains there. When we live, we spend energies, we need energies to maintain

this machine. (pp. 14-15)

Perls observes that one could just as easily discuss the self-actualization of an ash-tray as one

might discuss the self-actualization of a single mother: neither one is of the self-initiated,

autonomous sort. A flower will open and follow the path of the sunshine just as I will relieve

myself when my bladder is full.

The examples taken from Maslow are intended to demonstrate the style of scientific

inquiry (and its practice) when these are divorced from their philosophical foundations. In doing

so, Maslow has vilified logical-empirical science; he has belittled realist assumptions; and he has

privileged the human to the neglect of that various other iterations of nature’s actualization.

Once again, the purpose is not to dismiss with the entire project of Humanistic Psychology, but

to warn against the possibility of cult-formation. Indeed, Perls provides just one example of a

humanistic bent that does not center on the human.

Moss proposes a Whiteheadian conciliation of nature in applied psychology. The

present project, it seems, has not been the first doctoral thesis that has taken up the insights of

Whitehead in contemporary psychology. Moss (1995) has sought to specifically address the

decreasing dialogue between science and its metaphysical foundations that has typified modern

psychology. Moss accomplishes his task by considering the consequences of a Whiteheadian

vernacular within the discourses of postmodern and process philosophies. Moss concludes that

“Process metaphysics connects the scientist and practitioner parts. Process psychology embraces

the positive uses of science, hails the technological advances while [positing] the primacy of

processes, of values, and of relationships” (p. 114).

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By introducing the language and philosophy of Whitehead, Moss reconsiders the rigidity

of the personal and historical self which allows for a new conceptualization of the client-therapist

relationship—one that recognizes the profoundly complicated interrelationship of persons in the

continual process of becoming. He explains,

Process thought would embrace the emergence of selves through the ongoing

relational interplay between a multitude of entities or occasions. These interplays

include internal and external relationships, both the physical and mental, both

private and public, the three aspects of time (past, present and future), and the

appetition of self-creative urges and the aims presented by God. (pp. 91-92)

Thus the practitioner and scientist would be subject to the same relational structure of

mutual prehended/prehending where each is interconnected and affected. Moss writes,

For Whitehead and process thought everything is relational. This view of

selecting the observation from all the possibilities which are presented becomes a

relationship of intersubjectification of both the prehending observer and the

prehended observed. Both entities are affected. No real split between the object

and subject remains. The whole world is interpenetrated and available in principle

at any given moment of concrescence. The ongoing process of “becoming”

disallows fixed certainty; and combined with the self-creative principles of

process, it hints at mutual arising of causation and undermines predictability. (pp.

77-78)

When psychophysics and humanistic psychology are seen unfolding in the same event-structure,

Humanist assumptions regarding nature are found to be just as arbitrary as Modernist

assumptions. Thus, a theory of human development may be extended to objects and vice versa.

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Moss considers development with a language that implies that this need not be a process limited

to western humans, but may be discussed regarding nature as such. He discerns “peace” as the

actualization of nature in Whitehead.

Peace is the final stage … of process development and becoming. It is the

harmonizing with the universe. Peace is the culmination and fulfillment of each

actual entity’s subjective aim. Peace is the destination of God’s luring. Peace is

the loss of self into the whole fabric of creation. (p. 106)

The potato plant in the cellar of Carl Rogers’s childhood farm (Kirschenbaum, 1980) was not

just a metaphor for becoming a human person, but was an actualization of nature. And finally,

Moss (1995) presents a case for a radically empirical approach to inquiry methodology—that is,

one that hinges on an idiographic approach which recognizes that all one ever has are singular

instances of events. He explains,

In psychology, the nomothetic research style would fade for the preference of the

idiographic. The method of understanding the individual would of necessity

mean a contact with such entity. Each contact with, even observation, means

subjecting both the observed and the observer to the function of prehension. As

stated above, both entities are then changed. (p. 80)

By taking idiographic and nomothetic research styles together, Moss has erected a

psychology that aptly recognizes the consequences that would follow from an earnest

commitment to Whiteheadian process. While suggestions were made for inquiry methodology

and developmental theory—and could well extend into pedagogy, cognitivism, neuroscience,

etc.—Moss has gone into detail regarding process-therapy. Indeed, with sample client-therapist

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dialogues and an extended discussion on the meta-process, Moss has provided a tremendous

introduction to process-therapy with an emphasis on its metaphysical foundations.

It is these metaphysical foundations that this present project will attempt to discern

further. Not only what these might look like and the consequences that might follow, but how

they work. Modernity as a complete explanatory system has been shelved. The same goes for

the Humanist response. What remains is the consideration of a transdisciplinary science of

nature. It is the psychology of the phenomenological psychophysical sub-objective event. In

addition to the somewhat enigmatic description Merleau-Ponty (1956-57/2003) has provided

above, Moss (1995) also provides the foundation of the task:

Process is the fundamental reality of existence. Everything is constantly,

persistently coming together to form new entities and increase the future

possibilities of combination for entities. These entities of creation (concrescence)

organize, for nexus or societies at different levels, different intensities of

complexity and coordination. (pp. 78-79)

Particle physics, physiology, and psychology all comprise the same ontological material;

physical and psychical material which intermingles and co-participates in events which are

united in flesh. Beings and things are replaced by entities and actual occasions that are always

becoming. “Because all real entities are created of the same ontological stuff, dipolar occasions,

then differences and individualism becomes diminished. Such constitutional similarity provides

for a more ecological psychology” (p. 98). This sums up the goal for the present project.

Reviewing the Precedent for the Division of Nature into Distinct Orders

Above, Merleau-Ponty and Whitehead are found arguing for a conception of nature that

avoids vicious bifurcation. But the question remains: how can this position be maintained when

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it has become customary to divide nature into mutually exclusive orders? This is an action

which Merleau-Ponty is himself guilty of doing (1942/1963). This would require the argument

that particular events are limited in their ability to become subjects or objects. I argue that the

division of nature into distinct and hierarchically-related orders follows from the 19th-century

mechanical-objective realist ontology which has been ‘carried-over’ into contemporary

perspectives which find the former untenable. Thus, arguments for nature’s continued

division—e.g. Merleau-Ponty (1942/1963) which will be explored at length below—follow de

facto logic and are exceedingly difficult to demonstrate with reference to nature.

The aim of Chapter Three is to establish that subjects and objects only come into being

by way of the event of experience. Indeed, there is no sense of a subject or an object without the

experience of which they are constituents. However, the event of experience does not transpire

out of nothing; it is the concrescence or coalescence of two events that share a temporary

relation—an occasion into which they both perish. “The many become one and are increased by

one” (Whitehead, 1929/1978). Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) maintains the unity of nature by

arguing that insofar as two event-entities share a temporary relation, they are of the same flesh.

The character of their relation (sentient/sensible) indicates subject-ness and object-ness; it is only

through the event of their relating that they become thusly differentiated. For Merleau-Ponty,

this is to say that their identity and order is a product of the event of experience and not the

reverse. This is why he can maintain the possibility of reversibility between sentient and

sensible (discussed in Section I). By characterizing the event of experience as flesh—

differentiated into sensible and sentient, Merleau-Ponty is able to maintain the non-bifurcated

nature that was discussed in the conclusion to the literature review.

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Whitehead also maintains the direction of the relationship from event to subject-object

differentiation. To be clear, by “differentiation” I do not mean separable; the subject is not

separable from the object in the event of experience. Indeed, “differentiation” is more accurately

the process of unification between two disjunct events. The differentiation is in their character or

role in the experience. For Whitehead this is the provoker/recipient differentiation or his more

subtle version: prehended/prehending. When Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) describes the

reversibility of flesh as sensible/sentient, it may be understood in terms of Whitehead’s

prehended/prehending relationship. In both cases, nature remains without bifurcation. Its

differentiation only comes through the unification of event-entities. In order to maintain nature’s

unity, it must be demonstrated that the divisions of nature are actually instances of unification

and not separation. For example, the separation of living from lifeless entities in nature only

comes by way of their relation in an event and not the reverse.

Merleau-Ponty’s orders of nature. The present project has been motivated by

Whitehead’s (1938/1958) hope that nature might be conciliated. As the literature review has

shown, the past twenty-five centuries has been marked by nature’s division—into mind and

body, subjects and objects, beings and things, etc. More specifically, this has included the

modernist privilege for mechanical-objectivist realism and the humanist preference for dynamic-

embodied subjectivity. According to Merleau-Ponty’s (1956-57/2003) analysis, each places an

unnecessary restriction on the becoming of nature. While the main thrust of 19th century

mechanical-objective realist ontology has been quieted, some relics remain. Though

phenomenology did much to demonstrate the failure of this perspective, there remains a carry-

over into a dynamic, phenomenological perspective of nature. That is, divisions still remain.

With phenomenology, the subject is recognized as living in a reciprocal engagement with nature

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where boundaries are impossible to draw and meaningless if drawn. Yet subjects and objects are

left separated from this dynamic intertwining. This is why Merleau-Ponty (1942/1963) is able to

argue that event-entities participate unequally in nature. If this were the case, then Merleau-

Ponty’s (1964/1968) reversibility would be impossible, and the scope of relationships of

Whitehead’s (1933/1967) event-entities would be limited.

Merleau-Ponty (1942/1963) integrates a great deal of exciting research across the

physical, biological, and psychological sciences. These are domains of scientific interest that

would continue to inform his philosophy. Structure of Behavior delivers an impressive blow to

the application of mechanical models to the human. In it, Merleau-Ponty borrows from

Goldstein’s (1934/1995) holistic biological analysis of the human as well as Köhler’s

(1947/1957) work with perception in humans and animals. The result of this integration is a

proposal for an amendment to psychological and biological sciences. The subsequent

completion of Phenomenology of Perception (1945/1962) demonstrates the direction that

Merleau-Ponty goes following this systematic critique mechanisticity in the sciences. In this

regard, Structure may be read as a prequel to Phenomenology of Perception.

This latter point poses some problems for the recent fanfare surrounding the use of

Merleau-Ponty’s brand of phenomenology in understanding posthuman subjectivity which

features his later notions of flesh and reversibility (1964/1968; e.g. Mazis, 2008 and Rosen,

2008). As flesh, it is understood that nature is an undivided fabric which features a variety of

beings. Indeed, it is exciting to see where this line of thought might go. It seems a non-

anthropocentric phenomenology is possible. In order to defend a non-anthropocentric

phenomenology—that is, a phenomenology that does not begin and end with a particular socio-

historical human—Merleau-Ponty’s later work concerning nature as flesh will have to be

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distinguished from his earlier proposal. Conceived as flesh, nature may be understood as a

single and undivided fabric; according to Structure of Behavior, it seems that nature may be

divided into three distinct orders. These are the orders of Physical, Vital, and Human

(1942/1963, pp. 129-184).

Merleau-Ponty (1942/1963) distinguishes between these three orders of nature when he

writes the following: “In other words, matter, life and mind must participate unequally in the

nature of form; they must represent different degrees of integration and, finally, must constitute a

hierarchy in which individuality is progressively achieved” (pp. 132-133). As will be

demonstrated below, there is much precedent to the divisions that Merleau-Ponty has proposed:

matter, life, and mind; he refers to these as the orders of the Physical, Vital, and Human,

respectively. Throughout the duration of the present project, these three orders will be referred

to as physical, physiological, and psychological, respectively. In this regard, they fit nicely into

the vernacular of psychology. Nothing is lost in the introduction of these terms, but gained is the

ability to speak across the three disciplines that surround and include psychology. By separating

nature into these three orders, it is assumed that there are absolute distinctions between what one

finds within these categories. That is, the orders are mutually exclusive. For example, one could

not expect to do psychology by applying principles of physics; one could not expect to do

physics with the principles of physiology, etc. The arguments in favor of nature’s division will

be considered presently. These will be followed by the argument that nature’s division does not

require mutual exclusivity across the orders of nature. The latter is the argument of the present

section.

Presented already is Merleau-Ponty’s (1942/1963) conviction that physical structures,

physiological structures, and psychological structures must necessarily participate unequally in

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nature. That is, these structures may be discerned by their range of capabilities and limitations.

Moreover, these inequities constitute a hierarchy of individuality. By “individuality,” it is

understood that the structure in question is not divisible, but that it is an integrated and

unchanging whole. Rosen (2008) explains the term:

The Greek word “atom” is functionally equivalent to the word “individual”: both

mean “not divisible.” What is indivisible is immutable, not susceptible to change.

Reaching the atomic substrate of nature thus would mean reaching the point

where all of nature’s variability will have been eliminated. (p. 9)

With Merleau-Ponty, we find a stepwise progression in structural integration and capacity. In

fidelity to the hierarchical division of orders, it must be noted that there are no boundary

structures—that is, structures that straddle the boundary between two of the orders (e.g. the

physical and the physiological). This is because structures in the physiological order are in this

order specifically because they have something (integrity, capacity) that structures in the lower

physical order in principle do not. Merleau-Ponty explains:

By definition, it would be impossible to conceive of a physical form which had

the same properties as a physiological form and a physiological form which was

the equivalent of a mental form. There would be no means of finding a continuous

chain of physical actions between the stimuli and the reaction behavior would

have to be mediated by physiological and mental relations. But as long as one

remains within the point of view of psychology, as long as one views behavior as

a mundane event… this vital and mental mediation can be understood only as the

passage from one plane of reality to another; life and consciousness will be

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introduced as the additional conditions which supplement the inadequate physical

determinants. (p. 133).

To repeat: It may be understood that Merleau-Ponty proposes three distinct orders of nature

which are mutually exclusive and hierarchically related. It may be presumed that these orders

are also jointly exhaustive though it is never explicitly stated. What follows is a close analysis of

Merleau-Ponty’s claim that there are three orders that participate unequally in nature. A case is

made for discerning psychological structures from physical structures (Hartshorne, 1977), and a

case is made for discerning physiological structures from physical structures (Thorpe, 1977;

Schrödinger, 1944/1967).

Discerning Psychological from Physical. Merleau-Ponty is not alone in his conviction

that structures in nature participate unequally. Indeed, one need not return to the 19th century to

find compelling support for these divisions. Hartshorne (1977) provides a list of “reasons for

thinking that inanimate objects such as rocks and chairs are devoid of mind” (p. 91). That is,

there are distinct reasons why physical structures may be distinguished from psychological

structures. He provides the following list:

1. Their inertness, inactivity, motionlessness. They do not seem to do anything.

2. Their lack of freedom in the sense of initiative, creative departure from mere routine. The

predictability of astronomical events is a good example. The sole motions seem wholly

matters of routine, or statistical upshots of huge members of microevents, as in the sun’s

corona.

3. Their lack of individuality in the sense of unity and uniqueness. If a chair has parts—

pieces of wood, metal, plastic, etc—why assign feeling or memory, say, to the whole

chair rather than to each piece of wood, each nail or screw? In non-living things visible to

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the naked eye there is no clear distinction between whole and part, and no dynamic unity,

as though something like a sequence of experiences were influencing those parts.

4. Their lack of apparent intrinsic purpose. (Hartshorne, 1977, p. 91)

Merleau-Ponty has differentiated between the orders of nature by emphasizing greater or lesser

structural integration, individuality, and capacity. To this list, Hartshorne has added four new

distinctions between physical structures and psychological structures. “Higher order” will refer

to objects with mind while “lower order” for those without. He explains that higher order

structures are active while the lower, inactive; higher order structures demonstrate initiative

while the lower, routine; lower orders are capable of being anonymously swept up into a gestalt

whole, while the higher orders are not; and lower orders and the higher orders display intrinsic

purpose while the lower lack any apparent intrinsic purpose. Like Merleau-Ponty, Hartshorne

maintains that these factors determine the order to which a given structure belongs, and that these

structures are hierarchical, mutually exclusive, and jointly exhaustive.

Discerning Physiological from Physical. Hartshorne provides a way of distinguishing

the structures of the physical order from the structures of the psychological order. Thorpe (1977)

distinguishes the structures of the physiological order from those of the physical. He also

provides four examples.

So we can say: (a) What organisms do is different from what happens to stones.

(b) The parts of organisms are functional and are inter-related one with another to

form a system which is working in a particular way or appears to be designed for

a particular direction of activity. In other words the system is directive, or if we

like to use the word in a very wide and loose sense, ‘purposive.’ (c) The material

substances of organisms, on the one hand, and inorganic materials, on the other,

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are in general very different. And there is still another difference which seems to

me of great importance, and that is (d) that organisms absorb and store

information, change their behavior as a result of that information, and all but the

very lowest forms of animals (and perhaps these too) have special organs for

detecting, sorting, and organizing this information—namely the sense organs and

specialized parts of the central nervous system. (Thorpe, 1977, p. 3)

In distinguishing physical structures from physiological structures, Thorpe provides three key

points. Point (c) has been removed since it amounts to nothing more than a tautological

statement of difference. This will be important in the subsequent part of the present section

because it demonstrates the how these categories have been erected de facto with what seems

like little attention to the structures therein. Thus, it is fitting that Thorpe’s third distinction

between physical structures and physiological structures is that they’re different. Excepting (c)

fror the present discussion, Thorpe’s three points may be understood as characteristics found in

physiological structures which are lacking in physical structures. They are volition, purpose, and

the ability to store information. It is worth noting that Schrödinger (1944/1967) has written a

lovely volume titled What is Life? where he observes the profound differences between organic

and inorganic structures. Organic matter—that is, living matter for Schrödinger—is reliably

organized based on a single (and sometimes double) copy of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). He

writes of this,

Whether we find it astonishing or whether we find it quite plausible that a small

but highly organized group of atoms be capable of acting in this manner, the

situation is unprecedented, it is unknown anywhere else except living matter. The

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physicist and the chemist, investigating inanimate matter, have never witnessed

phenomena which they had to interpret in this way. (p. 79)

Schrödinger’s enthusiastic review of DNA follows a long description of the relative

disorganization of nonliving matter. Indeed, the laws of nonliving matter apply only as

aggregate probabilities. To give a substance a specific half-life says nothing of the probability of

a single molecule of that substance maintaining potency indefinitely. Indeed, the behavior of a

single molecule is entirely uncertain. However, with living matter, Schrödinger observes that

single cells play a predictable role of organizing entire organisms. He notes how this is without

precedent in the physical world.

In summary, Merleau-Ponty (1942/1963) proposes the division of nature into three orders

which are related in a hierarchy such that the higher structures exhibit individual integration and

capacity that is denied the lower structures. Once again, for the present discussion these have

been referred to as the Physical, Physiological, and Psychological orders. Furthermore, these

orders are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive. Hartshorne (1977) has provided four

compelling points of difference between physical structures and psychical structures; the latter he

has defined as objects with mind. Thorpe (1977) has provided three compelling points of

difference between physical structures and physiological structures, and Schrödinger

(1944/1967), a fourth.

Ambiguity in the Dividing Lines

Merleau-Ponty’s (1942/1963) observation “that matter, life, and mind must participate

unequally in nature” comes at the end of his critique of mechanization—that is, modernist

models of explanation in physical, physiological, and psychological sciences. Its placement at

the end implies that this hierarchy is the logical conclusion to Structure of Behavior, and thus the

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logical starting point in Phenomenology of Perception. This is to say that the first constructive

thing that might be said about moving forward after the systematic critique of mechanisticity is

that three divisions still remain and that their relationship is one of hierarchy. Structure of

Behavior provides a cry against an exclusively mechanical understanding of all structures in

science. However, once the mechanistic ontology has been dismissed, the traditionally separated

orders share more similarities than differences; as such, his chapter on the orders of nature is ill-

fitting! I argue that his segregation and hierarchization of nature is not a culminating argument

of Structure as much as a de facto assertion of ontological and ethological differences across

these three traditional orders. That is, Merleau-Ponty effectively flattens out the 19th century

hierarchical division of nature which had been based on structural complexity and sophistication.

Once this has occurred, one finds that “life” is a characteristic across all three orders. Yet he

concludes his work by asserting that hierarchical differences still exist. In sum, the lines that

Merleau-Ponty has used to divide nature do little to segregate the structures therein.

After his systematic critique of mechanisticity in psychological and biological theory,

Merleau-Ponty (1942/1963) argues against the utility of mechanical theories for any branch of

science. He includes Köhler’s critique of a mechanical model in human perception; he argues

for Goldstein’s non-mechanical model for organismic processes; and then he maintains that the

mechanistic model is no longer appropriate for physical bodies either. He explains,

The physical experiment is never the revelation of an isolated causal series: one

verifies that the observed effect indeed obeys the presumed law by taking into

account a series of conditions, such as temperature, atmospheric pressure, altitude,

in brief, that is, a certain number of laws which are independent of those which

constitute the proper object of the experiment. (p. 139)

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This is to say that the “isolated variable” that is the focus of a physical experiment can never in

principle be isolated from its physical milieu. In measuring barometric pressure, one is

necessarily also measuring temperature, altitude, humidity, etc. Merleau-Ponty is not alone in

his conviction that mechanical models are no longer tenable for understanding the physical order.

Thorpe (1977) observes the change in the conception of atoms from classical to contemporary

physics. He writes,

Atoms were thought to be permanent, unchanging elements of nature. Now, far

from remaining unaltered, they appear to be created, destroyed, and transmuted.

What do remain enduring are certain abstract attributes of particles, of which the

electric charge and the wave aspects of elementary physical particles are most

familiar. (p. 1)

When Hartshorne (1977) distinguishes physical structures from psychological structures, he

notes that the former are guided by routine and the latter, freedom. What Thorpe notices seems

to be at odds with this. Rather than being guided by routine, physical particles seem to be

recalcitrant to routine. “At bottom all the quantum principles assert that there are no devices by

which we can wholly control what state of a system we will observe next” (Thorpe, 1977, p. 1).

Complexity marks the shift from classical to contemporary. At the beginning of the

20th century, classical models of physics became increasingly untenable. Whitehead (1920/2012)

recounts the shift as it had been caught by the popular presses:

[D]uring the last few weeks the scientific journals and the lay press have been

filled with articles as to the nature of the crucial experiments which have been

made and as to some of the more striking expressions of the outcome of the new

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theory. ‘Space caught bending’ appeared on the news-sheet of a well-known

evening paper…. (Whitehead, 1920/2012, p. 85)

Such lay and scientific journal attention was due to a series of shocking experiments which drew

the classical conception of physical reality into question. Rosen (2008) provides additional

commentary on one such shocking experiment, and indicates how it drew the classical physical

model into question

When Michelson and Morley measured the velocity of light from different frames

of reference, instead of encountering the differences that they and every other

researcher had fully expected, light’s velocity remained the same. In the

perceptual analogy, it would be as if the objects on my desk would look exactly

the same to me regardless of my angle of view. Michelson and Morley’s strange

discovery was most alarming to physicists. In fact it was a bombshell that was

soon to precipitate the Einsteinian revolution. That is because the finding of

Michelson and Morley did nothing less than call into question the classical

intuition of object-in-space-before-subject that had implicitly governed human

experience for many centuries. (p. 163)

The last point that Rosen makes is important in understanding the unclarity of nature’s dividing

lines, and it will also prove consequential for the remainder of the present project. In the

classical model, as Rosen observes, there is the ontological assumption that objects participate in

human events in a passive and mechanical fashion. The Michelson/Morley experiment suggests

a collapse of this passive interaction and a dynamic intertwining of subject and object. Leclerc

(1977) will be used to consider this below.

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Merleau-Ponty (1942/1963) also makes an important point that the modernist model of

mechanical-objective realism is no longer sufficient as an exclusive model for understanding

structures in nature. This goes for barstools and bonobos. Once again, it is at this point that he

has inserted a section reminding his readers that even though the bodies of physics, physiology,

and psychology share the attribute of complexity, they might still be kept separate. Even though

it has been established that all of nature demonstrates high levels of complexity, activity, and

dynamism, Merleau-Ponty has nevertheless asserts a de facto separation between these orders of

nature. Leclerc (1977) has called this the tendency to “carry over” classical physical conceptions

into contemporary conceptions—even when the latter have been used to critique the former! In

order to understand how Merleau-Ponty might reintroduce outdated systems of division, a

moment will be taken to distinguish the classical conceptions of the physical order from the

contemporary amendments to these (demonstrated by Merleau-Ponty’s critique of mechanism

across each of his orders of nature). That is, despite his critique of mechanical-objective realism,

Merleau-Ponty still maintains (or “carries over”) some of the consequences of this model of

explanation. This is how he is able to assert a de facto division of nature into three mutually

exclusive orders.

In characterizing the time during which Merleau-Ponty and Whitehead had been writing,

Leclerc notes how “the last hundred years and more has rendered unacceptable the conception of

the physical which had dominated scientific thought since the seventeenth century” (p. 101). To

specify: in the classical conception, “‘matter’ meant one ingredient in the physical existent” (p.

101). In the classical conception of nature, lifeless matter could be distinguished from living

matter in terms of activity. Leclerc (1977) writes,

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The only change possible in respect of the physical as ‘matter’ was purely

external change of place, i.e., of being moved from one place to another.

But the result of the development of science has been that in this century

there has occurred a de facto abandonment of that early modern conception of the

physical. It is now on the whole implicitly or explicitly accepted in the basic

sciences that physical existents are somehow and in some respect ‘alive.’ (p. 101)

With the exception of Schrödinger’s (1944/1967) observations about the highly predictable

ordering of living (organic) matter which physical matter lacks, Leclerc (1977) collapses the

distinction between physical and physiological. The difference between animate and inanimate

structures—that is, physiological and physical structures—may no longer be determined by the

living-lifeless distinction. There is no “lifeless matter.” He continues, this time citing

Whitehead:

The fundamental philosophical implication of the contemporary scientific

development, as Whitehead perceived, was the rejection of all which was entailed

in the concept of ‘matter.’ That concept had implied that the physical existents

were sheerly passive, in themselves changeless; the necessity today is to conceive

physical existents as ‘active,’ as in a process of becoming. (p. 102)

At this juncture it is important to note how the differences between the physical and

physiological orders of nature are less clear than a sharp line of demarcation allows. The shift

from classical (mechanical-objective realism) to contemporary (complexity/sophisticated

realism) has been marked by a recognition of similarities across the classical lines of nature’s

division. However, Leclerc (1977) and Rosen (2008, below) have observed that “carry-over” of

classical consequences has occurred. Despite a necessary shift in the conception of nature, some

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of the consequences of the now untenable conception of nature (classical) have continued into

the new conception (contemporary). Merleau-Ponty’s (1942/1963) de facto separation of nature

into three orders has been implicated as an example of this. When this de facto separation is

considered in more detail, even Merleau-Ponty himself observes that there are more similarities

across these divisions than there are differences

Merleau-Ponty’s divisions in detail: Emphasizing similarities over differences. It

will again be stressed that Merleau-Ponty has begun this discussion with the recognition that

each of these orders represent a complexity that far exceeds that by which they have traditionally

been understood through the classical (i.e., modern) models. Merleau-Ponty discusses each of

these orders—physical, vital, and human—in turn. Since references will be made to his text,

Merleau-Ponty’s terminology will be used. The reader is reminded that “vital” has presently

been understood as “physiological” and that “human” has been understood as “psychological.”

Physical – Physiological. Merleau-Ponty maintains that while neither physical bodies

nor organic bodies may be understood as operating under the mechanical laws of modern

physics, one must necessarily still observe differences between them. However, it is difficult to

understand where the key difference emerges. For example, Merleau-Ponty recognizes the

similarities between the physiological order and the physical order:

Often, the quantitative relations with which physics is concerned are only the

formulae for certain distributive processes: in a soap bubble as in an organism,

what happens at each point is determined by what happens at all the others. But

this is the definition of Order.

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There is therefore no reason whatsoever for refusing objective value to

this category in the study of the phenomena of life, since it has its place in the

definition of physical systems. (p. 131)

The physical and physiological orders both operate, at least in part, in an orderly manner.

Moreover, neither operates by simple uni-directional causality but is embedded within a web of

relations. Both are more or less ordered, and each is contingent upon the surrounding

environment of relations. How then might they be distinguished? Merleau-Ponty argues that the

locus of order is what differentiates the physiological from the physical. The order of physical

matter is determined from without; the order of living matter is determined from within:

Doubtless certain physical systems modify the very conditions upon which they

depend by their internal evolution…. But action which is exercised outside the

system always has the effect of reducing a state of tension, of advancing the

system toward rest. We speak of [physiological] structures, on the contrary, when

equilibrium is obtained, not with respect to real and present conditions, but with

respect to conditions which are only virtual and which the system itself brings

into existence; when the structure, instead of procuring a release from the forces

with which it is penetrated through the pressure of external ones, executes a work

beyond its proper limits and constitutes a proper milieu for itself. (pp. 145-146)

Once again, Merleau-Ponty allows for the possibility that a physical body might regulate itself.

Yet this is followed by an argument that the same body is still contingent on its environment.

The physiological structure, it seems, differs from the physical in that it has the capacity of

shaping its own milieu. It might be added here that the physiological structure which effects a

change on its environment has done so without compromising its own integrity. Otherwise it

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might be argued that an oxygen-atom might exercise its vitality by requisitioning the valence

electrons of another oxygen-atom. Another way of stating this difference is that the physical

structure is acted upon by the world whereas for the physiological structure, the world is acted

upon.

One cannot assign a moment in which the world acts on the organism, since the

very effect of this “action” expresses the internal law of the organism. The mutual

exteriority of the organism and the milieu is surmounted along with the mutual

exteriority of the stimuli. (p. 161)

Referring again to the oxygen atom from the previous example—as a physiological structure, the

atom’s exteriority “surmounts” the exteriority of its fellow oxygen atom in the creation of an

oxygen molecule with a mutual exteriority. The now-surmounted oxygen atom, representing a

physical structure, has been acted upon. In either case, it seems as though individual initiative

may be attributed after the fact of an interaction to whichever structure remains the least

changed.

In summary, Merleau-Ponty maintains that the physiological order is, indeed, distinct

from the physical. While they bear much in common like order, non-linear causation, and

embeddedness in their surround, physiological structures are organized from within and physical

structures from without. This may also be stated in terms of action and inaction: Vital structures

act upon their surround while physical structures are acted upon. While Merleau-Ponty has

acknowledged an integral difference between the physical and physiological orders, this has been

accompanied by a range of similarities. It will be the purpose of the latter part of the paper to

examine the possible collapse of this line of demarcation.

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Physiological – Psychological. Merleau-Ponty has discerned the physical order from the

physiological order by arguing that the latter is itself responsible for its order whereas the former

is not, and that physiological structures are able to effect change on their environment whereas

the Physical structures are affected. Next he distinguishes the psychological order from the

physiological order. Merleau-Ponty is very clear about this difference, though it provides a

striking example of de facto logic. He writes,

Man can never be an animal: his life is always more or less integrated than that of

an animal. But if the alleged instincts of man do not exist apart from the mental

dialectic, correlatively, this dialectic is not conceivable outside of the concrete

situations in which it is embodied. One does not act with mind alone. Either mind

is nothing, or it constitutes a real and not an ideal transformation of man. (p. 181)

This excerpt represents a very interesting inner dialogue between what might be understood as

the author of Phenomenology of Perception (1945/1962) and that of The Visible and the Invisible

(1964/1968). The former is, of course, interested in understanding the uniquely human act of

perception; the latter is interested in collapsing this uniqueness into the world of flesh.

Merleau-Ponty argues that the psychological order is distinct from the physiological by

magnitude of integration. Moreover, both remain distinct from the physical order in their

capacity to act upon their surroundings. The psychological structures do so with an integrated

mind. This provides the first key distinction between psychological and physiological.

Psychological structures are capable of creating curiously Marxist objects with commodity-value

that exceed their use-value. Psychological structures build cities, wear articles of clothing, and

design living room interiors whereas physiological structures experience object-fixedness:

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A nest is an object which has a meaning only in relation to the possible behavior

of the organic individual; if a monkey picks a branch in order to reach a goal, it is

because it is able to confer a functional value on an object of nature. But monkeys

scarcely succeed at all in constructing instruments which would serve only for

preparing others; we have seen that, having become a stick for a monkey, the tree

branch is eliminated as such—which is the equivalent of saying that it is never

possessed as an instrument in the full sense of the word. (p. 175)

Merleau-Ponty claims that psychological structures and physiological structures may both be

found constructing tools. The former are capable of constructing them for no other purpose than

constructing more (sophisticated) tools, an ability which physiological structures do not share.

Though this seems to have been contradicted by Köhler’s (1947/1957) commentary to his work

on insight-based problem solving.

Merleau-Ponty also makes the case that psychological structures are marked by

consciousness which physiological structures do not have. He uses the child’s acquisition of

language as an example:

Consciousness is not comparable to a plastic material which would receive its

privileged structure from the outside by the action of a sociological or

physiological causality. If these structures were not in some way prefigured in the

consciousness of the child, the use-object or the “other” would be expressed in it

only by constructions of sensation, a progressive interpretation of which would

slowly disengage the human meaning. If language did not encounter some

predisposition for the act of speech in the child who hears speaking, it would

remain for him a sonorous phenomenon among others for a long time; it would

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have no power over the mosaic of sensations possessed by infantile

consciousness; one could not understand how it could play the guiding role which

psychologists agree in granting to it in the constitution of the perceived world. (p.

169)

While physiological structures—as in Goldstein’s Organism—are capable of meaningful

transformation within a milieu, this plasticity is not sufficient in understanding the acquisition of

a language. Indeed, it would take eons for a child to engage each novel sound, integrating them

into his or her milieu until every available sound and combination of sounds had been mastered.

Merleau-Ponty observes that even the recognition of the type of sound harkens a specific sort of

awareness. Though juxtaposition with the communication between physiological structures has

not been provided, it may be understood by extension that theirs lacks the element of

consciousness. Otherwise it could be argued that human voices would not sound sonorous to

wolverines either, and wolverine pups would also acquire the French language with shocking

rapidity.

In what might have been the working notes for Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-

Ponty describes how consciousness is intentional and cannot be substituted by the unconscious:

In entering an apartment we can perceive the character of those who live there

without being capable of justifying this impression by an enumeration of

remarkable details, and certainly well before having noted the color of the

furniture. To actualize these justifications ahead of time in the form of “latent

content” or “unconscious knowing” is to postulate that nothing is accessible to

consciousness which is not present to it in the form of representation or content.

(p. 173)

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Merleau-Ponty describes tendency for perception to occur as an entire gestalt event. An

apartment delivers a physiognomy in perception; it presents as a distinctly singular character.

This character is not to be understood as the rational sum of visible, auditory, and olfactory parts.

Instead, these components combine into the single apartment with which Human structures

interact and by which they’re changed. With this example, Merleau-Ponty once again neglects to

juxtapose the psychological order with that of the physiological, so it is uncertain whether this

gestalt experience is unique to psychological structures or extends to physiological structures as

well. Perhaps the reader is to understand that such gestalt perceptions demonstrate how

psychological experience exceeds mere construction of sensation. Yet again, this is what Köhler

(1947/1957) has demonstrated with chickens. In either case, Merleau-Ponty provides an

example of how the components of an apartment might combine to present as a unity. These

apparently individual parts of a setting come together in their interaction with psychological

structures. That is, one does not find an integrated being on one side and a pile of inert objects

on the other, but an event of integrated beings.

In summary, Merleau-Ponty has distinguished the psychological order from the

physiological order in terms of total integration, and in the former’s capacity for first- and

second-order meaning of objects. Physiological structures are limited to the first-order

meaning—that is, an object as it is currently being used. While Köhler’s chimpanzees have

combined two poles of insufficient length together to create a pole that reaches bananas, the

identity of these poles will now be limited to “banana-reaching poles” and no longer used for

jousting or high-jumping.

While Merleau-Ponty earnestly defends his division of nature into three mutually

exclusive orders, one finds that the differentiation between these orders is less than clear.

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Indeed, it seems that these orders share more similarities than differences. In terms of their

similarities, the following section will provide evidence for a more graduated distribution of

nature. That is, rather than arguing for mutual exclusivity, a few key characteristics might be

traced across the whole range of structures. The following section provides evidence for life

across all of nature’s structures.

Nature’s division as a graduated continuum with life at each order. It is evident from

the above discussion that Merleau-Ponty has had great difficulty maintaining mutually

exclusivity between orders. Once again, the proposal that these orders be mutually exclusive

entails that one cannot expect to find a physiological structure to demonstrate the individual

integration or capacity that marks a psychological structure, etc. While there might be a range of

structures that satisfy the specifications within each order, there is a definite gap in individual

integration and capacity between each order. In this part, the attribute of mutual exclusivity will

be dropped. This move changes two things: first, it does not restrict a given structure to a

specific order; and second, it implies that the defining characteristics of each order (e.g.

individual integration) may be found in every structure. The first change suggests that a

structure is not limited to any one order, but may pass between them based on temporal

integration and capacity. That is, the orders still differentiate between structures in terms of

integration and capacity, but a given structure may demonstrate much integration at one moment

and very little at another. The second change is a corollary to the first: if any structure could

pass from one order to the next and back again, then the defining characteristics of each order

must be evident in each of the structures that comprise nature. Together, these changes may be

understood as flexibility of dividing boundaries and flexibility of structural individualities. For

example, an atom, insofar as it demonstrates high levels of individual integration and capacity,

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may be found within the psychological order; a human, insofar as it demonstrates low levels of

individual integration and capacity, may be found in the physical order; etc. Merleau-Ponty

(1964/1968) demonstrates how this antinomy might unfold within a single person with his

demonstration of ‘left-hand-touching right-hand-touching-things’ (Section I).

To begin, consider an assortment of mundane objects or particles—the pile of books that

sits beside me. Though apparently inert and lifeless, the argument is that even these books are

composed of living processes. That they stand by passively for the gaze of subjects is a powerful

assumption that has survived the shift from classical to contemporary science that Rosen (2008)

and Leclerc (1977) have described. In a chapter of a volume titled Mind in Nature (Cobb &

Griffin, 1977), Hartshorne explains how these books are not only active, but capable of

demonstrating initiative:

Macroscopic inanimate objects are now known to be not the unitary, simply solid,

inactive things they appear to be, but rather collections of numerous distinct,

highly active things (molecules, atoms, particles). And there is no evidence that

such things are wholly devoid of initiative; what evidence there is suggests the

opposite. (p. 91)

That Hartshorne is willing to attribute volitional capacity to inanimate objects should come as no

surprise given his pan-psychic conception of nature. But from the earlier part, it is recognized

that even the most inactive, inert, and lifeless structures are made up of “highly active things.”

While it is a bit of a stretch to conflate activity with “life,” the recognition of complexity and

activity within all “matter” is important in understanding the shift from classical to contemporary

thought. Before fusing the inanimate physical structures together with the living, psychological

structures, consider first the similarities across physical and physiological structures.

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While activity at the level of inanimate physical structures is an improvement, it is still

found within the discourse of classical physical matter. I can push on the side of this growing

pile of books such that the tower begins to collapse. For a little over a second, the book-pile is

active—that is, it is undergoing a locomotive change. The new book-pile no longer resembles a

tower and is thus a new entity. Indeed, the physical interrelationships between books have now

changed markedly. Yet each of these descriptions of change remain on the level of the classical

paradigm—the book system parts exist separately in-themselves and only their physical

relationships change. If one were to instead propose that the fallen tower’s new identity also

changed the identity of its constitutive books, then there would be a departure from the classic

paradigm. Leclerc (1977) calls this the “conception of the physical as in a ‘process of

becoming.’” He explains how this conception of physical structures extends beyond those of the

classical conception:

[Objects in a ‘process of becoming’] entails other kinds of change in addition to

locomotion, kinds which are not reducible to locomotive change. This opens up

new vistas for the understanding of physical existence which, as Whitehead saw,

bring the sciences of physics and biology much closer together than had been

possible on the antecedent conception. (p. 102)

To be sure, a shift from locomotor activity to a dynamic ‘process of becoming’ would mark a

considerable change in the conception of physical structures. This would certainly begin to

‘bring the sciences of physics and biology much closer together.’ Leclerc continues his

argument with some examples:

In the subsequent centuries scientific inquiry has revealed an increasing number

and complexity of entities, but the philosophical problem of the relative status of

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these entities has been largely ignored. Yet the philosophical problem has become

greater. For the diversity of entities—in physics: atoms, electrons, protons,

neutrons, positrons, etc., etc.; in chemistry: atoms and molecules; in biochemistry

and molecular biology: highly complex structures of simpler molecules, and cells;

in biology: again molecular structures, cells, structures of cells into organs, a vast

variety of different kinds of organisms—is not being conceived in these sciences

as mere aggregates understood mechanically in terms of the locomotion of

constituents. Rather it has become increasingly clear that composite entities are

constituted by relatednesses or patterns of relationship among the constituents.

(p. 103)

Leclerc moves from the inorganic physical sciences and into the organic biological sciences by

emphasizing the similarity of constituent parts, and then emphasizing the character of

interrelatedness between the constituents of each structure.

This excerpt from Leclerc provides a great example of how nature might be understood

as a gradual distribution—that is, life is exhibited in each order though in increasing complexity.

This is distinct from Merleau-Ponty’s mutually exclusive orders for the fact that there is nothing

distinct that separates one structure from another. Instead, structures may be understood in terms

of varying degrees of life. Once again, the purpose of this present part has been in demonstrating

an alternative to Merleau-Ponty’s mutually exclusive orders while still allowing for varying

degrees of sophistication, life, mentality, etc. In addition to more appropriately modeling a post-

classical conception of nature, or even a first instance of conciliated nature, this model solves

philosophical and scientific problems as well. Softening the ontological boundaries between the

orders of nature allows scientists to explore the anomalies of classically defined phenomena

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(e.g., where a physiological structure demonstrates a psychological characteristic) and allows

philosophers to sort out the mind-body problem (i.e., there is no problem). Leclerc (1977)

explains how anomalies are resolved from the perspective of scientists:

What is necessary in the situation today is a re-thinking of the general problem of

the nature of the physical, and, in getting clear about that, of the particular

problem of the ontological status of the psychical or mental. That is, it is to be

determined what kind of being or existence is to be accorded to the psychical or

mental, and what therefore is its relation to the physical. A solution to this should

enable us to explain how complex molecules are able to have biological

characteristics. (Leclerc, 1977, p. 105)

Rosen (2008) explains how the mind/body problem only emerges when rigid lines are used to

divide nature:

Yet if the subject, at bottom, is in fact perfectly indivisible thus transcendent of

space, and if its objects are completely divisible thus immanent to space, could

there be any genuine interaction between subject and object? This is of course but

another way of stating the old mind-body problem that was never quite put to rest

in the classical tradition. If mind and body are ontologically divided, how is it

possible for them to interact? (pp. 6-7)

He goes on to describe the solution of this problem for philosophers: [M]ind and body—or

subject, object, and space—are not taken as pre-existent, fixed, and mutually exclusive

categories. Rather, they are seen to develop in intimate relationship to one another” (p. 7).

What follows is a specifically Whiteheadian conception of nature which accounts for

varying levels of mentality, sophistication, and life throughout nature. It will be the final

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instance of modeling nature that operates with the assumption that some structures exhibit

higher/lower levels of complexity than do others.

Whitehead’s proposal for a conciliated nature: Life across all structures. As

mentioned previously, many of the examples from this section have been taken from a collection

of Essays titled Mind in Nature: Essays on the Interface of Science and Philosophy (Cobb &

Griffin, 1977). The work of Alfred North Whitehead had been consulted throughout each of

these essays, with the editors providing specifically Whiteheadian commentary at the close of

each topic. Since this work has already been done, the present section intends only to summarize

how the editors have viewed Whitehead’s conclusions as they pertain to varying levels of

sophistication in nature.

To begin, a quote from Whitehead (1938/1958) is helpful in understanding his

assumption and how it differs from the classical (17th-19

th century) assumption of nature’s

division:

For some, nature is mere appearance and mind is the sole reality. For others,

physical nature is the sole reality and mind is an epiphenomenon. Here the

phrases ‘mere appearance’ and ‘epiphenomenon’ obviously carry the implications

of slight importance for the understanding of the final nature of things.

The doctrine that I am maintaining is that neither physical nature nor life

can be understood unless we fuse them together as essential factors in the

composition of ‘really real’ things whose inter-connections and individual

characters constitute the universe. (p. 205)

Whitehead chooses to collapse the duality of realism and idealism into a unity. While he lacks

this unifying language—a language which I argue phenomenology provides—it is clear that

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Whitehead does not believe that one may draw a line of demarcation between mind and matter.

Indeed, to suppose otherwise would be to propose that nature comprises competing and

incommensurable substances or actualitites. Griffin (1977) explains Whitehead’s position that

“there is only one kind of actuality.” He continues,

All actual entities, even non-living ones, are ‘organisms.’ Inorganic, living, and

conscious organisms are only different in degree, not in kind. Hence, the insoluble

problem of all dualisms, understanding how two totally different kinds of

actualitites can causally interact, is avoided. To affirm that living things emerged

out of non-living ones, and that conscious beings emerged out of non-conscious

ones, is not to affirm that the lower beings or processes produced something

totally different from themselves. (p. 133)

While language of classical science is “carried over” into the contemporary conversation, this

does not mean that inorganic, living, and conscious organisms comprise wholly different

substances. They might instead be understood as different compositions of the same

substances—nature or the “really real.” This is how Whitehead describes the differences in real

capacity across a variety of structures. Griffin explains:

Living organisms have more ‘mentality’ than non-living ones. …And conscious

beings have more self-determining power than non-conscious ones. Accordingly,

whitehead does not reduce the activity of complex beings to a mere function of

the activity of the simplest parts. …The activity of the human being is not totally

a product of bodily cells, but is partly due to the central series of actual occasions

which sometimes is conscious. (p. 133)

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Notice how ‘mentality’ is a characteristic that is not specific to any one order of nature. This

would be to suppose that there existed a boundary that separated mental structures from

nonmental structures. This line is not drawn. However, the argument is not that desk-lamps

exhibit the same mind as do smart-phones. The same may be said for mechanism within each

structure.

By recognizing the role of mind and mechanism in all structures, one need not look

exclusively to either system for an explanatory model. That is, mechanical models of

explanation supply limited understanding of actual occasions—be they poker-hands or piano

keys; so too do mental models of explanation. One is not restricted to an explanatory model that

is dictated by a structure’s location within the natural order. While limiting oneself to a single

model of explanation—e.g. mechanical, uni-directional, efficient causality for physical

particles—allows for the construction and defense of simple explanations, this prohibits the

possibility of bi-directional causality (Whitehead, in press), reciprocal cause (Deleuze,

1960/1992), or vicarious cause (Harman, 2005). Griffin (1977) provides a Whiteheadian frame:

Hence, to say that the cell is influenced by its inorganic parts is not to affirm that

it operates mechanistically; to say that the human psyche is influenced by its body

is not to affirm that the human being’s activity is totally determined by inorganic,

or even nonconscious, processes. No organism is totally determined by the

efficient causes upon it, since every actual occasion has at least some iota of

mentality or self-determination. (p. 133)

The argument here is that mechanical, uni-directional, efficient causality is never alone provides

a complete explanatory. This fails to take into consideration additional factors that have been

demonstrated to play a role. Though this has been proposed as a critique against all mechanical

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systems of explanations, this does not mean that such systems are worthless. It only means that

they are insufficient. This discussion will be taken up in the following section and will use Karl

Lashley’s (1930) critique of associationism, and will specifically focus on what is missed when it

is simply dispensed with entirely.

Returning to Whitehead’s conception of nature; thus far, the focus has been on the

demonstration of mind in physical particles and physiological systems. But it could be argued

that the hierarchically higher structures separate themselves from the lower structures in terms of

individuation. Above, Leclerc (1977) provides a listing of the levels of an organism—beginning

with atomic particles and moving into organ systems. Each level comprises a system of the

previous levels. It could be argued that each level necessarily represents a higher degree of

complexity and sophistication than those of which it is comprised. Insofar as a given level exists

as an individual—that is, cannot be divided—then it represents a unitary whole. Thus, the more

complicated the whole system is, the higher the level that one finds the structure in nature. Here

one finds that animals present as structures of impressive integration, complexity, and

individuality. But once again this smuggles in the classical notions that a structure’s boundaries

end in a finite, a-contextual space. Animals belong to larger structures of societies—packs,

gaggles, schools, and bowling-teams. These societies are also individuals from which

constituent structures cannot be separated. Moreover, the identities (that is, individual

capacities) of constituent structures are determined by the societies to which they belong. This

goes for the left hand of the pianist as it does for the pianist of the orchestra.

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Blurring the Lines between Physical, Physiological, and Psychological: Human, Animal,

and Robot Phenomenology with Glen A. Mazis

Considered above has been Merleau-Ponty’s (1942/1963) distinction between the

Physical, Vital, and Human orders of nature. In order to keep this within the discourse of

psychology, these have been amended in the present project in which they are referred to as

physical, physiological, and psychological. These divisions represent a mutually exclusive

hierarchy of orders that represent complexity and individual integration in nature. Moreover,

there is some precedent for such division in nature. Upon closer inspection, the rigid boundaries

that have been used to divide nature have proved less clear than anticipated. This is evident even

in the arguments of Merleau-Ponty as he seems to have done more to demonstrate similarities

across these orders than differences. This has also included an argument for the completion of

the shift from classical to contemporary thinking about nature (Leclerc, 1977). For example,

instead of behaving like the inert physical matter of the 19th

century, physical objects are found

exhibiting a dynamic character of “becoming.” With help from Whitehead (1938/1958; Cobb &

Griffin, 1977), these mutually exclusive orders based on complexity and individual integration in

nature have been refashioned into a graduated continuum of life. Instead of absolute differences

separating structures in nature, the structures are understood to comprise the same substance of

nature though they may be found doing so in differing degrees; even a single individual may be

found demonstrating a variety of modes of being.

Preserved in the above discussion has been the notion that some structures demonstrate

higher levels of life, sophistication, individual integration, etc. That is, the dividing lines

between orders have come down (or have proved untenable) while maintaining the possibility of

degrees of complexity. For example, while one structure may exhibit individual integration over

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longer periods of time, individual integration is a characteristic possessed by all structures in

nature. Moreover, that the structure’s individual integration is found changing when its milieu

changes poses no problems because structures are free to exhibit a variety of levels of individual

integration. In this part, a case will be made for the absolute collapse of the stratification of

nature into degrees of life, sophistication, individual integration, etc. This is to say that not only

are structures made of the same matter, but that physical, physiological, and psychological

structures do not necessarily differ in any dramatic way. This is the argument made by Mazis

(2008) in a work that has been appropriately titled: Humans, Animals, and Machines: Blurring

Boundaries. In the context of the present discussion, it may be understood that Machines

represent the classically defined physical order. Mazis writes:

It is a mistake to define humans, animals, and machines as three separate kinds of

entities, for there are mechanistic dimensions of animals and humans, as well as

animal dimensions of humans and, in some ways, even of machines. … To

complete our triad, attributes we may have wished to reserve as exclusively

human can be seen to also permeate animals and machines. Here the nature of

these overlaps will be articulated, as well as examples examined from different

disciplines. The human, animal, and machine are lodged within the core of each

other’s being. (p. 21)

Described as such, the orders of nature begin to say nothing about individual structures. A

structure does not belong to any given order. Instead, the orders define sets of possibilities for

each structure. Insofar as a human structure’s behavior is shaped by rewards and punishments,

the structure is a behaviorist machine. This, however, does not limit said human structure to the

repertoire of operantly reinforced behaviors.

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Mazis explains that such a position has become typical of his life’s work. “[P]art of my

own writing has been to document the ways in which animality is constitutive of what we think

of as most human about ourselves” and the corollary, “how animals express themselves through

behaviors and interaction that suggest they have intelligence, feelings, morality, capacities for

relationship, and recognition of mortality in certain cases” (p. 5). Since his corpus of scholarship

is already available, a complete summary will not be undertaken here. Instead, a brief

description will be provided for how he finds the boundaries between life orders to collapse.

This includes the collapse of the psychology/physiological boundary as well as the

physiological/physical boundary. Cobb and Griffin (1977) will be used to further defend this

position.

It is only through fusing together the orders of nature that any of them may be

understood. Not only does this help with the aforementioned mind/body problem and anomalous

laboratory observations, but Mazis (2008) argues that it is essential in understanding any and all

structures that present in nature. He writes:

The three realms (human, animal, machine), I would contend, can only be

thought through together. The boundaries of the human, animal, and machine

overlap, dance within each other, and separate, or maybe they should separate at

certain key moments, but these lines or arabesques have been barely drawn or

even traced out for the intricacy and beauty of their movements. Cyborg being—

our sense of incorporating tools, and becoming interwovern with machines within

us, about us, and within the meshes of how we have organized the world—has

always existed—it is just becoming more literal and extravagant. The animal

within us as source of vitality, of joy at organic being, of intercommunion with

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the creatures around us to experience the planet, is also an ancient aspect of

human existence…. (p. 6)

Mazis reminds us that the integral element in understanding nature is interconnection. Beings do

not exist in isolation. This is something that Romanyshyn (1982) catches in a lovely quote by

Ortega y Gasset (1961): “How unimportant a thing would be if it were only what it is in

isolation” (p. 58). Despite several admissions that no such object-in-isolation exists, lines of

separation are still drawn. Mazis explains the seemingly arbitrary tendency to demarcate

between orders of being that had been presented at a conference devoted to the task:

At Stanford University in 1987, a conference was held to try to sketch out the

boundaries and overlaps among humans, animals, and machines. The resulting

presentations were published as The Boundaries of Humanity: Humans, Animals,

and Machines. When one reads the essays, it is clear that none of the conference

presenters had a cogent sense of how to draw these boundaries or even to

articulate what was distinctive about humans, animals, and machines. Advances

in computer science, neurophysiology, genetics, ethnography, biology,

philosophy, critical theory, communications, and so many other fields have

perhaps made this task more plausible now, have at least given us more data and

theories to consider, and certainly also have made the need more pressing. (p 8)

Yet these distinctions remain. What follows is a brief summary of Mazis’s argument that these

boundaries might be collapsed.

Collapsing the Boundary between Physical and Physiological Orders. Mazis (2008)

recognizes that the key to understanding the collapse of the boundary between physical and

physiological orders begins with leaving behind the 19th century notion of matter—the notion

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what has already been discussed at length above. He provides the following summary of this

shift:

We think of matter as inert, as dumb, as senseless, and as self-contained. Yet what

a strange predicament for a material being to fall into—to become closed off to

the ongoing communication with other material beings!

…Matter is an activity, too, as we are—as animals are, even as machines are. Like

us, or these other beings, matter as activity can only be fully understood through

tracing its contours and rhythms. Again, we seek to articulate things through time,

as we actually live and experience, as the world actually exists, dynamically and

evolving in myriad ways. (p. 17)

This should sound familiar by now. The last point he makes, however, has not yet been

proposed. It is that physical matter—which is a dynamic activity like water-spiders—might be

investigated by “through tracing its contours and rhythms.” This proposal for investigating the

life of classically inert objects will be continued in Sections V and VI. For now it is important to

note what Mazis has found as the consequence of rejecting the 19th century conception of

physical matter. That is, even though it is agreed that matter is no longer lifeless and inert, it still

isn’t taken as a dynamic activity. Though the 19th century object has been rejected, there is still

Leclerc’s (1977) “carry-over” into contemporary conceptions. While they have graduated to

“active,” objects are still considered to be distinct from one another, from their context, and from

their milieu. This is why the present project has aimed at freeing objects from the 19th

century

ontology so that they might be recognized for their participation in contemporary events.

Mazis’s bold proposal may be seen explored throughout the remainder of the present project.

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What remains in collapsing the boundary between physical and physiological orders is

the compelling account from Schrödinger (1944/1967) that the organization of the latter far-

exceeds the former. Thorpe (1977) summarizes how Schrödinger’s account of the unique

sophistication of life might also be extended to a thunderstorm. Thorpe does so by quoting

Pantin (1968).

Pantin… points out that almost everything that Schroedinger has said about life

could at least in some measure be said about a thunderstorm. A thunderstorm goes

on doing something, moving, exchanging material with the environment, and so

forth; and that for a much longer period than we would expect of an inanimate

system of comparable size and complexity. It is by avoiding the rapid decay into

an inert system of equilibrium that a thunderstorm appears so extraordinary. But

the parallels between living organisms and thunderstorms, and indeed some other

meteorological phenomena, are remarkable. … Like living organisms, they

require matter and energy for their maintenance. This is supplied by the situation

of a cold air-stream overlying warm, moist air. This situation is unstable and at a

number of places vertical up-currents occur. … [M]oreover, the storm itself has a

well-defined anatomy of what can almost be called functional parts. (p. 2)

The thunderstorm—as well as some other meteorological phenomena—provides a strong

example of collapsing the distinction between living and nonliving structures based on

characteristics of order, activity, anatomy, and function. To be fair, however, the ellipses in the

above excerpt represent the two observed instances of difference between these two orders:

spontaneous generation which the living being cannot do; and evolution which the non-living

being cannot do (though this one could be argued against from several positions).

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In a contemporary example, consider the machine. The machine is built out of discrete

parts in a manner that determines its range of capacities. Indeed, it is that after which the

machine-metaphor has been based. But if the mechanical system fails as an absolute

explanation, what sense is to be made of machines—certainly they operate like machines. Mazis

(2008) doesn’t think so. Even machines resist the classification as mere objects. He writes:

Yet in our current era, machines are transforming and entering a more mature age

of their development. We could cite the host of machines that now function as

tied into “feedback loops” with their environment, a relationship in which events

in one play back into the other in a mutual manner, from the simplest thermostat-

driven heater or central air-conditioning unit to the most sophisticated medical

prosthesis or even to the most prosaic newly marketed vacuum cleaner that moves

around the room redirecting itself until it has covered all of its space. (p. 49)

Once again, these examples demonstrate powerful similarities between physical structures and

physiological structures. In this description, however, Mazis has used a number of

anthropocentric examples. It will be the argument in the later stages of this project that the

orders of nature—including machines—may be understood in a way that is not anthropocentric.

In proposing a collapse between the physical and physiological orders of nature, Mazis

has challenged his readers to earnestly consider the consequences that befall an object wrested

from the 19th century. If it may be recognized that said object is active and dynamic, then

certainly it may be recognized that said object participates in activities like other life structures.

Thorpe (1977) supplied a summary of the similarities between a thunderstorm and an organism

in a way that challenges Schrödinger’s separation of living and nonliving beings. And finally,

machines were introduced as a new boundary space which challenges the division of nature.

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Though some work will need to be done here yet. In his comparison between machines and

humans below, Mazis (2008) introduces an important step in Artificial Intelligence that has

closed this difference a great deal.

Collapsing the Boundary between the Physiological and Psychological Orders. In

collapsing the distinction between physiological and psychological structures—animals and

humans, respectively—Mazis begins by indicating their similarity on the genetic level. He

summarizes Jared Diamond’s (1992) findings that humans share a great majority of genetic

information. “In this perspective,” Mazis writes, “not only are humans not distinct from animals

and other chimpanzees, humans ‘don’t constitute a distinct family, nor even a distinct genus’

(quoting Diamond, p. 4). While this is a surprising bit of information, it is unlikely to make a

large impact in contemporary science. Indeed, the appeal is to the 19th century mechanical

distinction between life-forms. The genetic code guides the physical construction of the

organism; if the organism is only the written code, then this is a reduction of the life-form to a

mechanism. Suddenly Schrödinger’s (1944/1967) earlier emphasis on the single- or double-

strand of DNA seems misplaced. Again, while the infinitesimal genetic difference between

humans and chimpanzees would certainly have astonished 19th century communities, it is

unlikely to have the division between humans and animals to come crashing down. Here one

must look to the capacity of conscious engagement with the world—as in Goldberg’s (2011)

cortical zone of proximal executive development.

To say that two persons share the same genetic code—much less 98.5% of the same

code—does not mean that they are the same. Several decades of twin-studies have demonstrated

a potential for variability even between identical genetic codes. The differences may be

attributed to experiences, contexts, milieu, etc.—because a structure is not determined only by its

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genetic code but is also shaped by the world. Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962) has demonstrated the

limited explanatory efficacy of and biological reductive understanding of a being by putting

placing said being within a particular spatial-temporal context and noting the differences that

emerge. This is because a structure is not independent from its environmental surround.

Furthermore, it is not consciousness that allows a body to be shaped by its surround but the

reverse. Mazis uses Merleau-Ponty’s notions of embodied perception to demonstrate the

arbitrariness of life orders while preserving uniqueness of structures.

As embodied beings, we are pulled in so many directions by each perceptual

experience, even if our willfulness chooses not to pay attention. Each of these

directions opens up many pathways of apprehension, some of which are merely

personal and fleeting, some of which are culture and indicative of shared aspects

of our situation, and some of which are others ways to take in the factual sense of

the environment. It is on this level of perceptual engagement and attunement that

the “world” of the alien might not be as alien, which supports the idea that the gap

between the experience of the logger and the conservationist may at moments be

greater than that between human and animal. (p. 31)

By focusing on Merleau-Ponty’s recognition of the role of the body—not as a classical 19th

century “mechanism” but a contemporary 20th

century dynamic “becoming”—Mazis observes

the range of being that might be occupied by a particular structure. The body actually makes it

possible for the orders to overlap entirely. In order to free objects from their 19th

century limits

of finitude and constancy, they must be taken up in this dynamic capacity. When one does so,

the segregation of certain objects or bodies into mutually exclusive life-orders falls apart.

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To find the places where humans can be surprised and taken aback by new senses

of animals and machines, and of humans in their overlap with animals and

machines, as well as to see the suffering of the collisions of these realms, requires

entering the depth of the meaning of the material realm “taken in” by the body

that binds these beings. (p. 14)

And he continues,

This means that as embodied beings we are enmeshed in the world with which we

relate in such a ways that we are woven into its fabric. If the power of abstract

reflection is to pull away from being “caught up” in things, to think through the

relations of which we are a part from a needed distance, then the body, through

perception and the other powers mixed within it, is our way into the world (p. 15)

Mazis concludes this line of thought by providing a way out of the 19th century mire of abstract

object relations. Instead of beginning with the idea that objects are marked by distance and

separateness from one another, he suggests that one begins with the capacity of becoming

“caught up” in the world. Without a de facto separation between psychological capacities of

being “caught up” and those of physiological or physical, then the kind of enmeshment with the

world with which phenomenologists have grown so familiar may be used to understand the being

of other life structures.

Finally, it is worth noting that Mazis has observed “embodied being” evolve in Artificial

Intelligence. He explains how the computers that were designed in the 1970s that could defeat

world chess-champions failed to excite the lay public because a robot had not yet been designed

that could butter a piece of toast. The failure to complete even the simplest of tasks resulted in a

profoundly limited scope of AI. As such, AI is dictated by a 19th century mechanical logic that

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can only respond to that which has been previously anticipated. This was until researchers at

M.I.T. began experimenting with Embodied Intelligence. The body became integral to the

robot’s engagement with its surround. Embodied Intelligence is discussed in Section VII of

Chapter V.

It is in recognizing the similarities across life-structures that dissolves the boundaries of

their segregation. Structures have bodies. With bodies, structures participate in the world. For

each structure, this is an enmeshment with the world such that world and structure share in a

dynamic event of becoming. Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) has referred to this as flesh. That is, I

am a being of nature that can participate in nature because myself and nature comprise the same

flesh. This notion will be considered in detail in the subsequent section. In order to free objects

from the 19th century prison of isolation and changelessness, they must be allowed to participate

as flesh of the world as well. When this happens, the divisions that separate life-structures begin

to dissolve. Instead of imposing discrete sets of capacities on discrete structures, these orders

instead describe potentialities of particular configurations and assemblages of structures. These

capacities are not in principle denied any structure, but exist in each to varying degrees.

Arguments against the Mutual Consideration of A.N. Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty

The implications of Whitehead’s project for a process-ontology have received increased

attention in the last decade. As Stenner (2008) puts it, “Prominent philosophers and theorists of

science such as Isabelle Stengers, Donna Haraway and Bruno Latour have contributed a new and

unexpected frisson of ‘radical chic’ to Whiteheadian process philosophy” (p. 91). The basis of

Whitehead’s renewed (or simply new) popularity is not in his aspirations to unify modern natural

science with Humanism (Whitehead 1938/1958) and form a correlationism (Meillassoux,

2003/2012), but in the manner by which his process philosophy takes no single position of

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ontological privilege. Instead of negotiating the tension between the “objects of experience” and

the “experiencing subject,” terms borrowed from Wundt (1897, p. 3), Whitehead maintains that

this tension does not exist. He does so, however, without positing the primacy of the subject. It

is in this manner that he has been taken up by Deleuze—a combination that has also received

attention, such as “the recent conference (May 2005) devoted solely to Whitehead and Deleuze,

organized by the University of Leuven (Halewood, 2005, p. 58). “Both Whitehead and Deleuze

reject the division of the complexity of existence into oversimplified categories such as the

natural and the social” (p. 60) and to which we might add “the human.”

As Shaviro (2012) has noted, this radical movement by Whitehead (and Deleuze)

positions process philosophy outside of the neo-Kantian discourse of subjects, objects, and truth.

In this manner, Whiteheadian process is found exceeding the scope and impact of

phenomenology. In the previous section, the potential for a Whiteheadian process-ontology has

been briefly outlined. Borrowing from Merleau-Ponty’s (1956-60/2003) course-notes on Nature,

this has included a conciliation of both formats of viciously bifurcated nature—modernist and

humanist. In the modernist bifurcation, ontological privilege is given to the object. In the

humanist bifurcation, ontological privilege is given to the subject—Meillassoux (2003/2012) has

called this position correlationism, defined below. Merleau-Ponty has identified Schelling—

“everything is the I,” Husserl’s intentional consciousness, and his own embodied perception as

examples of the humanist reduction of Nature. The present section will consider the criticism of

humanism that has been directed at early phenomenology.

Phenomenology is correlationist. The intentionality of Brentano (1874/2002),

subsequently taken up by Husserl in his transcendental phenomenology, still borrows from the

language of Kant with the apprehension of the essence of the thing—that is, phai-noumena: the

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phenomenon. This has been the manner by which 20th century humanist science has resolved

modernity’s (objectivistic) bifurcation of Nature. This effort to mend Nature’s bifurcation is

insufficient. The mid-century humanist response remains within the dialectic of modern natural

science. Instead of inert lifeless bodies as the focus of an objective science, phenomenology has

turned to subjectivity to correct the imbalance. Stenner (2008) explains:

Psychosocial theorists have tended to draw accounts of subjectivity from sources

such as psychoanalytic theory, phenomenology, symbolic interactionism and

discourse theory and in fact there has been a distinctly “unWhiteheadian”

tendency to champion subjectivity against objectivity as if they were polar

opposites. (p. 91)

As such, the recent attention toward Whitehead has been in the service of a conciliation between

subjectivity and objectivity—not a specifically human correlate between the two. Yet, one can

gather from Stenner’s comment that subjectivist discourses are incorrect. Moreover, the

criticism is being issued as if from the lips of Whitehead himself—as if he would likely have

shaken his head at the efforts of phenomenology. It will be important to pay attention to the way

Whitehead is positioned with regard to any of the sciences, subjective or objective. At the

conclusion of this section, attention will be given to manner by which Whitehead considers

scientific projects that might be contrary to his own, and there is no indication that he would be

dismissive in any way.

Shaviro (2012) re-considers continental philosophy by replacing Heidegger’s

(1927/1962) project with Whitehead’s (1929/1978). Indeed, the two projects proceed quite

similarly. But a more radical interpretation of Whitehead’s process philosophy, one that lands

outside of the western metaphysical dialectic, solves the problem of “vicious bifurcation” in a far

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different manner. Heidegger’s correction of Western metaphysical dualism involves the

conciliation of things and their being. That is, what appears to be separate is actually together;

dualism is negotiated by a mediation between the two—subject and object, body and mind,

being and thing. This solution to Nature’s bifurcation has been referred to as “shallow

empiricism” so as to distinguish it from a more radical approach—“deep empiricism.” The same

position has also been called “correlationism” by Meillassoux (2003/2012) which will be

discussed below. Stenner (2008), who has introduced this bifurcation of empiricism, explains

that “shallow empiricism” involves:

A combination of two aspects that are usually presented as mutually antagonistic

but that are actually two sides of a single coin: a “material aspect” and an “ideal

aspect”. On one side of the coin, the world is presented as essentially made up of

meaningless matter. Real “objective” reality is thus brute physical “stuff” or

substance. Any attributions of subjectivity (aim, value, enjoyment) to nature itself

are to be strictly avoided. When observing nature, the shallow empiricist thus

observes only what is publicly observable. To the extent that this is achieved, the

subjectivity of the knower can be considered objective. On the other side of the

coin, the notion of subjectivity is restricted only to the high-grade experiences of a

human knower. (pp. 93-94)

Whitehead as a “shallow empiricist” corrects the problems that emerge when Nature has been

bifurcated by bringing the two parts back together, yet their unity is in their sum—being and

thing. In this manner his project is akin to that of Heidegger (per Shaviro, 2012). While this is

an improvement, it remains within the already problematic metaphysical structure that keeps

separate things and beings found in Husserl (Dillon, 1988/1998), Merleau-Ponty (Merleau-

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Ponty, 1964/1968; Barbaras, 1991/2004), and Heidegger (Shaviro, 2012). Recent proponents of

Whiteheadian process philosophy have criticized this use of Whitehead, and have dispensed with

phenomenology on the same ground. “Shallow empiricism leaves us with a highly distorted and

limited conception of subjectivity (which is considered as separate from nature), coupled with a

rather partial and superficial account of nature” (Stenner, 2008, p. 95). As mentioned previously,

the term for Stenner’s (2008) “shallow empiricism” that has been circulating in circles of

continental thought has been “correlationism.”

Continental philosophy and the dogma of correlationism. Husserl, along with the

phenomenological tradition that would follow, made great strides in developing and defending a

metaphysics that negotiated the incommensurable rift between idealism and realism. Harman

(2011) explains,

Authors working in the continental tradition have generally claimed to stand

beyond the traditional dispute between realism (‘reality exists outside our mind’)

and idealism (‘reality exists only in the mind’. The correlationist alternative, so

dominant that it is often left unstated by its adherents, is to assume that we can

think neither of human without world nor of world without human, but only of a

primordial correlation or rapport between the two. (p. 2)

Following Brentano’s notion of intentionality, Husserl defends a consciousness that comprises

intending subject and intentional object as constituents in the noetic act. To be sure, the duality

of subject and object collapse into a singularity; but the assumption is that this emergent

singularity is specifically human. The world and the subject are fused such that, as Harman has

stated, “we can think neither of human without world nor of world without human”. The term

‘correlation’ was introduced by Quentin Meillassoux (2003/2012) who explains,

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By ‘correlation’ we mean the idea according to which we only ever have access to

the correlation between thinking and being, and never to either term considered

apart from the other. … Consequently, it becomes possible to say that every

philosophy which disavows naïve realism has become a variant of correlationism.

(p. 5)

It will be shown shortly how Husserl’s defense of a transcendental phenomenological

methodology begins with such a rejection of naïve realism. Indeed, Dillon (1988/1998) criticizes

Husserl for his failure to reject naïve realism completely—for failing to pledge absolute

allegiance to a “correlationist” ontology. Husserl borrows from early 20th

-century perception

theory, but the rejection of naïve realism goes back further. Meillassoux has found a clever

example in Hegel,

We cannot represent the ‘in itself’ without it becoming ‘for us’, or as Hegel

amusingly put it, we cannot ‘creep up on’ the object ‘from behind’ so as to find

out what it is in itself—which means that we cannot know anything that would be

beyond our relation to the world. (Citing Hegel, 1977, p. 54; p. 4)

The world cannot be investigated in a manner outside of the manner by which it presents to the

human. Two possible realities are at stake given Hegel’s argument: the first is a world absent

humans—a net clinging to the basketball rim in the high school gymnasium on Christmas

morning; the second is a world present to, but unperturbed by human subjectivity—patterns of

footsteps in the snow left by conscious humans that are no different than those left by Chalmers’

zombies. Naïve realism would maintain the constancy hypothesis in the first instance: the net

would continue to hang from the basketball rim throughout the holiday break and into the

season’s playoffs; it would not vanish into an existential abyss absent an intentional human. In

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the second instance, the relationship between human and environment can be explained entirely

and predictably by the objective relations between material bodies. In each, objectivity is

primary while subjectivity is at most inconsequential. Correlationism rejects the ontological

privileging of objectivity that naïve realism suggests. But it does so without reversing the

ontological privilege. Meillassoux continues,

Correlationism consists in disqualifying the claim that it is possible to consider

the realms of subjectivity and objectivity independently of one another. Not only

does it become necessary to insist that we never grasp an object ‘in itself’, in

isolation from its relation to the subject, but it also becomes necessary to maintain

that we can never grasp a subject that would not always-already be related to an

object. (p. 5)

Harman (2011) explains the correlationist position further:

Whereas realists assert the existence of a world independent of human thought

and idealists deny such an autonomous world, correlationism adopts an apparently

sophisticated intermediate position, in which human and world come only as a

pair and cannot be addressed outside their mutual correlation. Accordingly, the

dispute between realism and idealism is dismissed as a ‘pseduo-problem’.

Inspired ultimately by Immanuel Kant, correlationists are devoted to the human-

world correlate as the sole topic of philosophy, and this has become the unspoken

central dogma of all continental and much analytic philosophy. (p. vii)

Given the apparent integration of the two categories—subject and object; mind and body; ideal

and real—the position of correlationism is often taken as a positionless-position. The benefits of

each position of the categorical dualities just listed are preserved by binding them together into a

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unified whole. This solution seems to have typified much of continental thought. Whether the

glue that binds the dualisms be consciousness (per continental philosophy) or language (per

analytic philosophy), the result is the same: an indivisible human link between the real and ideal.

Harman explains the genesis of the term and its reception:

The rapid adoption of this word, to the point that an intellectual movement has

already assembled to combat the menace it describes, suggests that

‘correlationism’ describes a pre-existent reality that was badly in need of a name.

Whenever disputes arise in philosophy concerning realism and idealism, we

immediately see the appearance of a third personage who dismisses both of these

alternatives as solutions to a pseudo-problem. This third figure is the

correlationist, who holds that we can never think of the world without humans nor

of humans without the world, but only of a primal correlation or rapport between

the two. (pp. 7-8)

In his introduction of the term, Meillassoux (2003/2012) identifies the continuing trend in

contemporary philosophical circles—namely those continental strands that begin with

consciousness—to grant absolute ontological primacy to intentional (human) consciousness.

While the human certainly provides a nexus through which these dualities might collide, the

correlationists have ended their investigation with the human as the only possible nexus. This

has resulted in dogmatic humanism.

For the present project, it will be maintained that the conciliation of Nature is not

complete by granting ontological privilege to the human. Whitehead wished to see a conciliation

of modern science and humanism (1938/1958)—not a replacement of the former by the latter.

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Moreover, Merleau-Ponty (1956-60/2003) has already indicated the consequences that befall an

ontology that privileges the human subject to the neglect of the various other modes of Nature.

“Deep” or radical empiricism. The aforementioned “frisson” begins when one considers

Whitehead in terms of what Stenner (2008) has called “deep empiricism.” It is in this that one

sees the radical possibilities of Whitehead’s process philosophy—an approach that goes beyond

dualism, leaving behind the customary western metaphysical platform. Stenner explains,

[D]eep empiricism radically extends and refines the domain of subjectivity. But in

deep empiricism neither “subject” nor “object” play the role of first term or

primary substance… an actual occasion is always a fusion of subject and object in

the unified event of an experience. Deep empiricism is thus “deep” in at least four

ways:

(a) …it entails a thoroughgoing shift in cosmological perspective. That is to say,

it entails a shift away from either materialism… or idealism… and towards a

process ontology grounded in concern [to which one might add “commitment”

(Doud, 1977), “flesh” (Merleau-Ponty, 1964/1968; Hamrick, 1999), or “deep-

ecology” (Cobb, 2001)].

(b) …subjectivity is considered to extend well beyond the high-grade forms of human

subjectivity typically associated with “consciousness” and “knowing.”…

(c) …It allows us both to affirm a certain commonality between human beings, animals,

plants and even rocks but without “flattening out” or otherwise denying the very

important differences between the kinds of actual occasions [also called “events”

(Shaviro, 2012; Whitehead, 1929/1978; Heidegger, 1989/2012)] that occur in the

context of, say, a mountain, a penguin, an organ and a human being….

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(d) Finally, … it is not just about describing more or less accurately some matter of fact,

but about finding the conditions under which something new is invented and enters

into the world. (p. 94)

In terms of “deep empiricism,” Whitehead has certainly gone beyond the traditional parameters

indicated by Western metaphysics. By applying Stenner’s notion of “deep empiricism” to the

present project, it calls for a turn to interdisciplinary or trans-disciplinary scientific dialogue. As

such, Whitehead’s radical conception of Nature (discussed in the literature review, above) would

necessarily implode the sciences as currently conceived—an implosion that will be the topic of

Part Two. Halewood (2005) notes the capacity for this radical conception of nature:

One of [Whitehead’s] great achievements… is his insistence that science,

philosophy, the humanities, and social theory all require a renewed conception of

nature (in the broadest sense of the word), one that goes beyond strict scientific

limitations, beyond any form of biological essentialism or reliance upon some

notion of the ultimate laws of physics or nature. (pp. 57-58)

Whitehead can be shown demonstrating how these historically separated universes might

be brought back together while staying within the dialectic of position and negation, thesis-

antithesis, being and thing; this is an example of what has been termed “shallow empiricism.”

That is, Whitehead may be read as a correlationist. This correlation of things and their being is

the level at which phenomenology has been said to stop. In conciliating Nature in the more

radically “deep” form, Whitehead collapses all of the various abstractions of nature into one

nonanthropocentric and nonanthropomorphic “event”: becoming—natura naturata and natura

naturans (Shaviro, 2012). There is no Modern Natural Science, and no Humanism. There are no

beings or things. “At an instant there is nothing. Each instant is only a way of grouping matters

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of fact” (Whitehead, 1934, p. 48; cited in Stenner, 2008, p. 99). This radical format of “deep

empiricism” requires no conciliation of things and their being. The purpose of Part One,

however, is to defend that no such bifurcation exists in phenomenological or Whiteheadian

empiricism.

Criticisms against Merleau-Ponty. As mentioned previously, phenomenology has been

criticized for stopping short of the radical conciliation of nature that is evident in Whitehead—

that is, it does not get beyond “shallow empiricism” (Stenner, 2008) or “correlationism”

(Meillassoux, 2003/2012). I do not find these criticisms to be valid. Phenomenology can be

understood in a manner that is consonant with the most radical conceptions of Whiteheadian

process. Moreover, as Whitehead’s former pupil Paul Weiss (1980) explains, discarding an

entire disciplinary perspective is, in the words of Stenner (2008), “very unWhiteheadian.” While

I find much of the tradition of phenomenology to be consonant with the present project, my

focus has been largely limited to that of Merleau-Ponty. Thus, the specific criticisms of

phenomenology will be limited to those directed at him.

It is my contention that when given a generous, deep, and serious read, the

phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty yields a metaphysics every bit as promising, exciting, and

audacious as that of Whiteheadian process. In Merleau-Ponty, one finds an empiricism as radical

and deep as that of Whitehead; an ontology of becoming that recognizes the primacy of the event

of becoming in addition to recognizing the various abstractions of things and beings; and finally,

a cosmology that understands the reciprocally-causal, reversible aspect of all things—that is, an

intertwining, chiasm, flesh of the world (Merleau-Ponty, 1964/1968). As such, I prefer to

consider the radical potentiality of Whiteheadian metaphysics alongside Merleau-Ponty and not

in-place-of him.

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Merleau-Ponty is found insufficiently radical: Phenomenology of Perception

maintains Cartesian dualism. While Dillon (1988/1998) has found Merleau-Ponty’s ontological

project to succeed in navigating the traps of objectivism and subjectivism, it has only done so at

the cost of correlationism. Take, for instance, Beaufret’s response to Merleau-Ponty after the

presentation of the paper “Primacy of Perception” (1947/1964):

Nothing appears to me less pernicious than the Phenomenology of Perception.

The only reproach I would make to the author is not that he has gone “too far,”

but rather that he has not been sufficiently radical. The phenomenological

descriptions which he uses in fact maintain the vocabulary of idealism. In this

they are in accord with Husserlian descriptions. But the whole problem is

precisely to know whether phenomenology, fully developed, does not require the

abandonment of subjectivity and the vocabulary of subject idealism as, beginning

with Husserl, Heidegger has done. (pp. 41-42)

M. Baufret finds in Phenomenology of Perception what Merleau-Ponty (1956-57/2003) has

called the humanist conception of nature. Indeed, this is what Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968)

observed in reflection upon his own work. He writes, presumably regarding Phenomenology of

Perception:

The problems that remain after this first description: they are due to the fact that

in part I retained the philosophy of “consciousness”[. Now I must demonstrate

the]…”destruction” of the objectivist ontology of the Cartesians[. This would lead

to the] Rediscovery of ϕύσιζ, then of λόγοζ and the vertical history starting from

our “culture” and the Winke [signal] of our “science”… (p. 183)

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Referring back to the conciliation of Nature in the literature review, above, Merleau-Ponty

(1995/2003) has suggested that the bifurcation of Nature be mended through an intertwining of

ϕύσιζ- λόγοζ-History. In this passage we understand that he has found himself caught within the

Cartesian dual-ontological framework. In order to escape this, he must begin with its

destruction. To be fair, Dillon (1988/1997) has read Merleau-Ponty’s (1945/1962) ontological

project in light of his later work (that is, 1964/1968), and has found it to be a successful flight

from Cartesian dualism, indicating that it is instead Sartre who privileges the subject. Dillon

writes,

Merleau-Ponty argues that the Sartrean dialectic is “bad dialectic,” an empty

formal structure which, “against its own principles, imposes an external law and

framework upon the content and restores for its own uses pre-dialectical thought”

(citing Merleau-Ponty, 1964/1968, p. 94). Good dialectic, or in Merleau-Ponty’s

terms, “hyperdialiectic,” is that which understand the profound movement of self-

mediation where the process of emergence is grounded in the things themselves,

bound always to the concrete contents, and not dictated from above by a

supervenient form which imposes its own requirements upon that which it seeks

to understand. (p. 46)

Dillon thus finds in Merleau-Ponty that which the latter has outlined as tasks yet-to-be-

completed. The corpus of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, which I would argue extends to all

phenomenology—indeed, all philosophy—may be understood as a dynamic work-in-progress. It

comprises the same flesh of ambiguous perception, Spring fashion-runways, and cat-gut racquet-

string. Taking any philosophical idea at any one point of development and demonstrating its

insufficiency is to dismiss it too hurriedly. This is precisely what has happened to

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phenomenology in the recent upsurge of Whiteheadian process. Attention will presently be

directed towards the criticism, identified by Merleau-Ponty, that there remains a dualism in

Phenomenology of Perception.

Dualism in Phenomenology of Perception. Dillon (1988/1998) has argued that

Merleau-Ponty escapes the subject-object dialectic which has ensnared Sartre. Barbaras

(1991/2004) is less optimistic about this. He explains,

In the first works, it looks as though when Merleau-Ponty tried to provide an

account of the fundamental event of perception, defined by the concept of form,

he started from concepts that remain inadequate because they are caught in

oppositional systems. Hence, the solutions that could be described as dialectical,

either by way of an explicit reference to Hegel in The Structure of Behavior or

with recourse to the Husserlian theory of the living present in Phenomenology of

Perception. But the solution remains merely verbal in both cases: it tries to fill a

gap [écart] between an experience and the categories that are inadequate to it. (pp.

xxi-xxii)

Here Barbaras is keen to the critique with which Merleau-Ponty has regarded his own work—he

has begun with consciousness as the starting point. In doing so, a gap of temporal duration and

ontological ether separates things and their being. From this starting point, either subjectivity or

objectivity must be given ontological privilege. Merleau Ponty

[S]till remains prisoner of a philosophy of consciousness inherited from Husserl.

This appears in the final analysis of the body in terms of sensing and sensed,

touching and touched, subject of the world and part of the world. Such

conceptual pairs are just so many displaced modalities of the duality of

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consciousness and object. The chiasm, then, appears as a means of filling the gap

[écart] between these dual categories, of recombining what was split apart

beforehand, rather than as a truly innovative concept. Thus, I am inclined more

and more to think of Merleau-Ponty’s final philosophy as not having fully cast off

the presuppositions of the philosophy of consciousness as faltering because of a

lack, rather than an excess, of radicality. (p. xxiv)

In arguing that Merleau-Ponty’s (1945/1962) project remains within the anthropocentric-

humanist-reductionism that characterizes Husserl and Schelling (Merleau-Ponty, 1956-57/2003),

Barbaras (1991/2004) identifies the ways in which Phenomenology of Perception and Structure

of Behavior remain within in a dual structure. Rather than escape the subject-object dialectic,

Merleau-Ponty remains within it. Moreover, ontological privilege is given to the subject.

Barbaras writes,

Expressed as early as the introduction to The Structure of Behavior, Merleau-

Ponty’s purpose lies in understanding the relation between consciousness and

nature. The situation of psychology, which attempts to conceive this relation, is

characterized by the juxtaposition of a critical philosophy that turns all of nature

into an objective unity constituted before consciousness and a science that places

consciousness in nature and conceives the relation between them in terms of

causality. (p. 3)

Like Merleau-Ponty has shown in the dialogue concerning Nature (1995/2003), the Humanist

conception succeeds in unifying subject-and-object. The problem, however, is that the object

may only be understood through the primacy of the perceiving subject. This is the dogma of

correlationism. In Phenomenology of Perception, this humanist conception gets a body. Thus,

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objects collapse into the embodied subject. The dialectic becomes a knot drawn as tightly as

possible—though the two are not yet intertwined as the subject is understood to be most primary.

Barbaras (1991/2004) explains the dualism evident in the conception of embodied subjectivity:

The body… appears as something divided by means of the subject-object

oppositions; it appears as the still mysterious place where the subject-object

relation is tied together. This is why finally the body can be described only across

symmetrical exclusion of the two terms of the opposition. The body is neither the

subject nor the object, but the mediation of subject and object. …Merleau-Ponty

oscillates therefore between a unitary conception of the body and a dualistic

vision which turns the body into the “means” of consciousness. …in other words,

he never reaches the point of describing positively the fact that the body belongs

neither to the domain of the object nor to that of the subject. Ultimately, Merleau-

Ponty’s analysis assumes here the Cartesian ambiguity to which he never stops

returning. (Barbaras, pp. 7-8)

Since Merleau-Ponty has followed Husserl and begun with intentional consciousness, this

humanist presupposition remains. This means that the Nature is only insofar as it has been

intended by, and is intended for, humans. Barbaras observes that Merleau-Ponty continually

stretches this ontological presupposition into spaces of radical nonduality, yet always returns to

the problematic subject-object relationship. Subject and object are brought together as closely as

possible, yet still remain at a distance like 0.9̄ and 1.0—kept separate by and infinitely small 0.0̄

1. While this might be a tremendous improvement on the modern conception of Nature, the

bifurcation remains. Barbaras explains,

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Nevertheless, this “potentiality” and this “having” of the world are not thought

through to the end, with the result that Merleau-Ponty slides back toward a realist

conception, a conception implied by his recourse to psychology that always

grasps the body in a movement of objectification. Implicitly, then, the body is

considered by means of the duality of the organic and the psychic. The body

becomes “the mediator of the world,” mediator for a consciousness which is itself

only “the being-toward-the-thing through the intermediary of the body” (quoting

Merleau-Ponty, 1964/1968, pp. 138-139; p. 7).

Thus Merleau-Ponty’s early ontology amounts to a humanism. Barbaras continues,

Existence is grasped as man’s facticity, even though the experience to which it

refers leads us to overcome the frontal relation of man to being, to overcome the

duality of subject and object. Prisoner of a dualist framework, Merleau-Ponty can

therefore describe it only in a negative way: it coincides neither with the passivity

of the anthropological subject situated in the objective world nor with the pure

activity of the constituting subject. (p. 9)

The consequence of this ontological presupposition is an anthropocentric science that mends the

subject-object bifurcation by collapsing the latter into the former; objects are

anthropomorphized.

As has already been stated, Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968; 1956-57/2003) has been well

aware of the limitations of his original response to the modernist conception of Nature. Indeed,

the progression of his work can be understood as an ever-increasing radicality of his conciliation

of Nature. Barbaras (1991/2004) observes,

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In this sense, the famous notes on the necessity of leaving behind the

consciousness-object duality should be read as the expression of an exigency

rather than as a final report. As the state of the texts reveals, Merleau-Ponty’s

philosophy was still a philosophy in a state of becoming, and it was certainly not

fully completed when death interrupted the work. This justifies our constantly

returning to it. (p. xxiv)

It is appropriate that the ontology of becoming should include with it an epistemology of

becoming. That is, one does not derive matters of fact from a fixed instance of philosophical or

scientific inquiry; understanding unfolds im-mediately from ontological becoming. Physis and

lόgos are intertwined—they are of the same flesh. Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) summarizes the

criticism of his early work, and outlines yet another forward-thinking edge of Nature’s

conciliation:

The problems posed in Ph.P [Phenomenology of Perception] are insoluble

because I start there from the “consciousness”-“object” distinction----

Starting from this distinction, one will never understand a given fact of the

“objective” order (a given cerebral lesion) could entail a given disturbance of the

relation with the world—“Consciousness” is a function of the objective body----it

is these very problems that must be disqualified by asking: what is the alleged

objective conditioning? Answer: it is a way of expressing and noting an event of

the order of brute or wild being which, ontologically, is primary. …

Show… 3. That the perception-message analogy… is valid, but on condition that

one discerns a) the flesh beneath the discriminating behaviors…. (pp. 200-201)

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Merleau-Ponty identifies the snag in a subject-privileging ontology—namely, that which is to be

said about the relation between cortical damage and consciousness. The relationship need not

always begin with that which has been granted ontological primacy. Indeed, the causal

relationship could well be reciprocal. By turning away from the subject-object duality and

focusing instead on flesh, subject and object prehend with equal primacy. The focus on flesh will

be considered in the following section titled “Flesh and Prehension.” The notion of reciprocal

causality will be considered as part of the discussion in section four, titled “Radical Empiricism.”

Whiteheadian generosity: Mining Merleau-Ponty for sparks of creativity. In the

introduction to these critiques, phenomenology had been included in a list of disciplines that

Stenner (2008) has characterized as “distinctly ‘unWhiteheadian.’” This suggests that the

projects of phenomenology and those of Whitehead would share no resemblance or are mutually

exclusive. Examples of this include the arguments that Merleau-Ponty’s embodied subjectivity

is insufficiently radical and remains dual (Barbaras, 1991/2004; Merleau-Ponty, 1964/1968). If

taken for granted, these criticisms argue against the mutual consideration of Merleau-Ponty and

Whiteheadian process.

I maintain that Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty do complement one another in interesting

and insightful ways. I have thus referred to the phenomenology that has received the above

criticisms as “early phenomenology” in order to distinguish it from the “later phenomenology”

which I find to be largely complementary to Whiteheadian process. This bifurcation of

phenomenology is largely arbitrary, necessary only in light of the “unWhiteheadian” polemic

that has been advanced against it. Indeed, as Barbaras (1991/2004) has commented regarding

Merleau-Ponty, his life-work can only be read as an unfinished project—a propos considering

the final works of his to which we have access were unfinished notes. When Merleau-Ponty’s

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(1964/1968) earnest commitment to breaking free from Cartesian dualism is explicitly stated,

one begins to find similar efforts throughout his earlier work as he struggles to realize this.

Barbaras (1991/2004) writes,

Since [Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception] is still dependent on the

duality of thought and extension, intentionality must be understood as a specific

dynamism, and extension, intentionality must be understood as a specific

dynamism, a “movement” in a sense that precedes the distinction between literal

and metaphorical, between local displacement and meaningful apprehension. The

“I think,” and then straightaway the “I perceive,” is truly an “I can,” as Husserl

had already anticipated. (p. xxiii)

Merleau-Ponty can indeed be found doing much more than maintaining the “vicious bifurcation”

of nature.

Furthermore, there is no evidence to suggest that Whitehead would be so dismissive of

any philosophical project. For example, in his critique of Heidegger, Shaviro (2012) shares

Whitehead’s tendency to mine philosophers for their creative sparks. Ironically, this is supplied

as a reason Heidegger ought to be exchanged for Whitehead—rather than taken up alongside or

in tandem with Whitehead. Despite the criticisms that Merleau-Ponty has received, Whitehead

would most certainly have found powerfully insightful sparks of radical departure from dualism

and the customary bifurcation of nature. As his former student explains, “Don’t forget…

Whitehead was always generous with his attributions and not necessarily accurate” (Weiss, 1980,

p. 55).

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CHAPTER THREE:

THE SUB-OBJECTIVE EVENT OF EXPERIENCE

No topic has suffered more from this tendency of philosophers [to bifurcate

nature] than their account of the object-subject structure of experience.

(Whitehead, 1933/1967, p. 175)

In the first part of this project, it was shown how Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty provide

an apt conceptualization for Wundt’s (1897) early project of Psychology. It has been argued that

the realization of Wundt’s psychology also serves as a method of understanding nature’s

conciliation. This conciliation is found through the sub-objective event of experience. Wundt

has observed that psychological experience could be studied through the joint consideration of an

“experiencing subject” and an “object of experience” (p. 3). Whitehead (1920/2012) refers to

this fracturing of the psychological subject matter as “bifurcation,” and observes how this

typically results in an absolute division of psychology. The example he gives is the event of

perception: considered thus, the event of perception comprises physical objects (e.g. electrons,

atoms, molecules) which are responsible for the perception, and the sense awareness that is thus

caused. In his example, perception is divided into “awareness and cause of the awareness.” By

dividing an event into to causally-related occasions, there is an implication that each occasion

could occur without the participation of the other. Whitehead argues that the event is the

fundamental and indivisible unit from which sense is made of subjects and objects; Wundt

anticipates this position by referring to the singular “experience” of which there are subjective

and objective poles. Thus, Wundt’s two parts of experience exist only by way of experience.

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The present section will consider the event of experience out of which one discerns

objects of experience and experiencing subjects. The reason for parsing objects and subjects in

this manner is twofold: first, this has been done in order to stay within the subject-matter of

psychology; second, it will be demonstrated that there is no “object” or “subject” without the

sub-objective event. By further specifying the event “of experience,” investigation will take up

the sub-objective event as it is experienced by humans. This is because humans are capable of

providing information about what a particular experience is like. Thus, by “experience” one may

understand the world in its availability for humans. Experience is the conciliation of the human

world. The psychological subject cannot be understood outside of this event; the psychological

object cannot be understood outside of this event. This is why they have been combined in what

I term the sub-objective event of experience. I do not make the argument that subjects or objects

might exist outside of the sub-objective event of experience, because this would require a

starting point that does not begin with human experience. Such projects have been proposed

(e.g. Harman 2002/2006; Bogost, 2012; or Trigg, 2013), but these are in principle impossible to

corroborate without anthropomorphism and/or speculation. Sections V and VI provide a more

thorough consideration and discussion of how these might be psychological.

In order to understand the sub-objective event of experience, it will first be important to

understand the event. The event is the fundamental ontological unit in Whiteheadian Process

(1929/1978, 1933/1967, 1938/1958). As a consequence of a long history of mechanical-

objective realism, it is difficult to conceive of an event without conflating it with a particular

object which is the event’s occasion. Whitehead (1920/2012) explains how even though “An

object is an entity of a different type from an event”, “we have no language to distinguish the

event from the object” (p. 40). Whitehead explains that the Great Egyptian Pyramids are events

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whose ingredients include “the whole dance of molecules and the shifting play of the

electromagnetic field” (pp. 40-41). The dancing molecules provide the ‘situation’ for the Great

Pyramid event. But the “event which is its situation [also] depends upon the position of the

observer” (p. 77). Together, the event can be understood by situation and situatedness; one finds

that subject and object are together implicated in this process.

The subsequent sections will consider the subject and object in turn, but their introduction

is not yet satisfactory. A problem that has arisen must first be solved. I have begun with the

argument that experience will be the starting point for the investigation, yet have I not indicated

in the above example that the event is itself contingent on objects (dancing molecules) and a

subject (the perspective of an observer)? It seems like the investigation must begin with these

ingredients that are antecedent to the event of experience. However, I argue that the subject-ness

and object-ness do not come about until the event of experience. The event’s contingency is not

found in subjects and objects but in other events. The dance of molecules is itself an event; it is

also the ‘situation’ for the Great Pyramid. Events overlap and interact in the creation of new

events. Whitehead (1920/2012) explains,

Two events have junction when there is a third event of which both events are

parts, and which is such that no part of it is separated from both of the two given

events. Thus two events with junction make up exactly one event which is in a

sense their sum. (p. 40)

This typifies Whitehead’s ontology, which will be referred to throughout this project as “process

philosophy” or Whiteheadian Process. The following sentence nicely summarizes this: “The

many become one and are increased by one. In their natures, entities are disjunctively ‘many’ in

process of passage into conjunctive unity” (1929/1978, p. 21). From this one learns that the

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subject and object are antecedent to experience as events; it is only by virtue of their

“conjunctive unity” in an event of experience that they become subjects and objects. This is how

it may be understood that subjects and objects are antecedent to experience yet only identifiable

as subject or object as constituents of the event of experience. The shift from disjunctive to

conjunctive that Whitehead identifies as the concrescence of a new event of experience will be

the topic of the latter half of this section. Following Whitehead, it will be argued that the event

of experience is non-disjunctive—subject and object are inseparable. However, before exploring

the structure of the sub-objective event of experience, time will be spent following Whitehead’s

explication of the process which is the occasion for experience.

The event produces something new which can itself supply a situation and situatedness

for a subsequent event to unfold. Whitehead (1933/1967) describes this process at some length.

It will be presented a few lines at a time with commentary.

Each [event] is analyzable into the total experience as active subject, and into the

thing or object with which the special activity is concerned. This thing is a datum,

that is to say, is describable without reference to its entertainment in that

occasion. (p. 176)

Whitehead begins by stating what has already been described. Experience can only be

understood as a total event which includes subjective and objective poles. He also maintains that

the event which is occasion of experience (which will become the object of experience) has

properties outside of the incipient experience. This is to say that the dancing electrons (that is,

the situation for the Great Pyramid) themselves have properties without being swept up into the

event of the Great Pyramid. So too does the Great Pyramid, as an event, have properties before

being swept up into the situation of a burial ceremony. An event’s situation changes based on its

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situatedness. Whitehead continues, “An object is anything performing this function of a datum

provoking some special activity of the occasion in question. Thus subject and object are relative

terms” (p. 176). Here it may be seen that an event is not predisposed to be a subject or an object.

An event gets its “object-ness” by virtue of performing the function of provocation of a subject.

Thus it follows that “An [event]4 is a subject in respect to its special activity concerning an

object; and anything is an object in respect to its provocation of some special activity within a

subject” (p. 176). In summary, the event of experience is the conjunction of two events that are

associated in a ‘provoker/recipient’ type relationship. The conjunction of these two events

produces something new—a sub-objective event of experience. Whitehead has identified three

factors which combine for the concrescence of an event of experience—an activity which he has

termed ‘prehension:’

Thus a prehension involves three factors. There is the occasion of experience

within which the prehension is a detail of activity; there is the datum whose

relevance provokes the origination of this prehension; this datum is the prehended

object; there is the subjective form, which is the affective tone determining the

effectiveness of that prehension in that occasion of experience. (p. 176; see also

1929/1978, p. 23)

Prehension refers to a particular relationship between events. These events combine to create a

new event of experience. Their combination can be understood as provoker/recipient, where

each antecedent event occupies one role or the other. An event is not limited to either role, but

may be characterized as playing a particular role in the event of experience. Whitehead

4 Whitehead often used “event” and “occasion” interchangeably (Shaviro, 2012). Here I have replaced “occasion”

with “event” in order to avoid confusing the reader—which is itself decidedly unWhiteheadian.

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introduces the terms “prehended” and “prehending” to emphasize the subtlety between

antecedent events. It is only in the experience that prehended and prehending are differentiated.

Merleau-Ponty will also be consulted throughout this project for the differentiation

between subjects and object in the event of experience. He (1945/1962) describes the event of

experience thus,

When an event is considered at close quarters, at the moment when it is lived

through, everything seems subject to chance: one man’s ambition, some lucky

encounter, some local circumstance or other appears to have been decisive. But

chance happening offset each other, and facts in their multiplicity coalesce and

show up a certain way of taking a stand in relation to the human situation, reveal

in fact an event which has its definite outline and about which we can talk. (pp.

xviii-xix)

Through Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty, the event of experience is the concrescence (Whitehead)

or coalescence (Merleau-Ponty) of a single actuality out of a possible many. The event’s

actuality is the unity of previously disjunct antecedent events. However, it is only through their

concrescence or coalescence that subject-ness and object-ness may become differentiated.

Moreover, subject-ness is fused to object-ness and the reverse. So by the consideration of

subjects and objects it must not be understood that I am arguing for a subject-in-itself or an

object-in-itself. The subject is defined by its relationship to an object and the object is defined

by its provocation of the subject.

Within the now-differentiated event of experience, the relationship between subjects and

objects may now be considered in further detail. That the once disjunct events can become

unified demonstrates their undifferentiation as elements of nature. Merleau-Ponty refers to this

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as flesh. This will be discussed in Section I. For Merleau-Ponty, entities are capable of

interacting through events of experience because they comprise the same flesh. He characterizes

this event of experience through the event of sense-perception. Event-entities become sense

objects for me because we are of the same flesh—I am sentient and the world, sensible. But I

can also be sensible myself, as demonstrated by touching my right hand with my left.

Reversibility is thought to be a characteristic of all things, but it can only be experienced in the

event of human experience.

Flesh implicates subject and object in the sub-objective event of experience. Like

Whitehead’s term “prehension,” the experience of flesh begins with an affective relating between

events—sense-object “provokes” a sentient subject. This must not be confused with agency.

There is no agency between events: one event is beckoned or “provoked” by another, and their

unity in this process constitutes the sub-objective event of experience.

All knowledge is conscious discrimination of objects experienced. But this

conscious discrimination, which is knowledge, is nothing more than an additional

factor in the subjective form of the interplay of subject with object. This interplay

is the stuff constituting those individual things which make up the sole reality of

the Universe. (Whitehead, 1933/1967, p. 177)

By considering the experiencing subject and the object of experience, psychology

presupposes the event of experience. The antecedent setting provides the set of possibilities out

of which the event of experience is possible. The experience that unfolds is something that is

new. “No event is like any other, etc.” Experience can only be understood through the emergent

subject and the emergent object. Whitehead (1920/2012, 1933/1967) and Merleau-Ponty

(1945/1962, 1948/2004, 1964/1968) have both argued that experience may be understood as a

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unity of object and subject. For example, Whitehead (1933/1967) writes how “the subject-object

relation is the fundamental structure of experience” (p. 176). I argue that the classical

conception of nature requires that it is the subject and object that come together to create the

event of experience. In this conception, subjects or objects remain unchanged from the

beginning to the end of an event. Here an object may be found influencing a subject (classical

physics) or a subject may be found influencing an object (contemporary physics). The former

demonstrates the classical conception of object constancy and the latter demonstrates classical

carry-over by granting the subject constancy. My argument, following Whitehead and Merleau-

Ponty, is that neither the experiencing subject nor the object of experience remains constant

through the event of experience. Indeed, it is only through the event that subject and object

become differentiated as such. However, it is also only in the event of their unification that the

occasions of subject and object may be discerned. Thus, there is no subject or object without the

sub-objective event of experience.

The experiencing subject may be explored as the process of conscious discrimination.

This may be understood less as an agentive action than as an availability to being provoked or

beckoned. Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962) compares the sentient and sensible (subject and object,

respectively) “with those of the sleeper to his slumber:”

Sleep comes when a certain voluntary attitude suddenly receives from outside the

confirmation for which it was waiting. I am breathing deeply and slowly in order

to summon sleep, and suddenly it is as if my mouth were connected to some great

lung outside myself which alternately calls forth and forces back my breath. A

certain rhythm of respiration, which a moment ago I voluntarily maintained, now

becomes my very being, and sleep, until now aimed at as a significance, suddenly

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becomes a situation. …[I]n the same way the sensible has not only a motor and

vital significance, but is nothing other than a certain way of being in the world

suggested to us from some point in space, and seized and acted upon by our

body…. (pp. 211-212)

Merleau-Ponty describes how the event of experience is not initiated by a subject but takes hold

of an entity as a subject. Once again, we can only understand the reversibility from prehending

to prehended as a human. Whether or not the slumber is itself capable of experiential

reversibility is not in question because its sentience cannot be explored. The experiencing

subject will be the topic of Section I.

Since subjects and objects are found relating through the flesh that is shared in the event

of experience, the experiencing subject cannot be understood without the object of experience.

Indeed, it is the latter that provides the situation of the event of experience. But object-ness only

comes about through the particular set of relations in the event of experience. Indeed, an object

is a particular manner of provoking a subject into relation. To be sure, the antecedent event that

is the situation for the incipient experience has particular properties like the dancing molecules of

Whitehead’s Great Pyramid. But these can only be understood as sense-attributes of an object of

experience. This makes objects, by virtue of this definition, objects-in-themselves-for-subjects.

There can be no object-in-itself because an “object” indicates particular sense-attributes for a

subject. Thus, an object that beckons a human subject is necessarily clothed in human

sensibilities. It is also explained why objects seem to have constancy in-themselves. The objects

of experience will be the topic of Section II.

Whitehead (1929/1978) has described the event of experience as the conjoining of

previously disjunct antecedent events. Here we find unity where there previously was none.

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Whitehead’s concept of prehension indicates the subtle differentiation (namely, subject and

object) within this event while Merleau-Ponty’s concept of flesh explains how disparate events

can find coherence. It is the event of experience that conciliates nature. This coming together of

events will be explored through Dillon’s (1988/1998) “identity-within-difference” and Rosen’s

(2008) “unity in diversity.” Both emphasize Merleau-Ponty’s concept of flesh in their rendering

of the events of the lifeworld. With their commentary, the coming together of two events in the

sub-objective event of experience is explained by way of analogy to the Necker Cube Gestalt-

image, and the anomalous geometrical figures of the Möbius Strip and the Klein Bottle. These

provide analogous examples of how two apparently disjunct events can be conjoined in a manner

that makes each part integral to the other. Finally, the concrescence of the event of experience is

explored with the aid of quantum uncertainty and chaos theory—fields for which Whitehead

shared his fondness. These will be covered in Section III.

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Section I: The Experiencing Subject

Things and instants can link up with each other to form a world only through the

medium of that ambiguous being known as a subjectivity, and can become present

to each other only from a certain point of view and in intention. (Merleau-Ponty,

1945/1962, p. 333)

Beginning in the literature review of nature, we have seen two primary methods by which

Whitehead’s observation of “vicious bifurcation” has been managed. In the first instance—what

has been called the modern conception of nature (Merleau-Ponty, 1956-57/2003)—nature’s

bifurcation has been managed by granting material objects ontological precedence. The

modernist assumption is that nature is available to the tools of scientific inquiry, and is typified

by classical physics. Whitehead (1933/1967) explains how “[i]t is tacitly assumed, except by

Plato, that the more fundamental factors will ever lend themselves for discrimination with

peculiar clarity” (p. 175). This position is directly challenged by Whitehead. The problem with

the modernity’s solution is that these material objects are abstracted from the processes from

which they have emerged. This reduces the complexity of nature to brute matters of fact. “The

subject is the knower, the object is the known. Thus, with this interpretation, the object-subject

relation is the knower-known relation” (p. 175). He continues,

This deduction presupposes that the subject-object relation is the fundamental

structural pattern of experience. I agree with this presupposition, but not in the

sense in which subject-object is identified with knower-known. I contend that the

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notion of mere knowledge is a high abstraction, and that conscious discrimination

itself is a variable factor only present in the more elaborate examples of occasion

of experience. (pp. 175-176)

The reduction of nature to material objectivity has been criticized by a century of continental

philosophy as well as the scientific disciplines this has supported. In the previous discussion,

this has included Husserl’s (1931/2002) criticism of modernity’s emphasis on mere factuality

and his subsequent observation that modern science has found itself in crisis (1970); Merleau-

Ponty’s (1942/1963) observation that modernity’s reduction of nature to material objectivity

does not allow for the orders of increasing complexity into which nature is formed; and

Heidegger’s (1927/1962) argument that modernity’s exclusive focus on ontic being has entirely

left out the dynamic unfolding of ontological Being—that is, the very question of ontology. In

psychology, these criticisms of Modernity have been echoed by James (1890, 1899/1962),

Toulmin et al. (1985), Bevan (1991), and Kelly et. al (2007). Moreover, the emphasis on “brute

matters of fact” is what Whitehead (1938/1958) has termed the “supremacy of the desert” (p.

27).

As observed by Merleau-Ponty (1956-57/2003; and to some extent 1964/1968), the

solution to modernity’s problematic negotiation of nature’s bifurcation has been replaced with a

sophisticated conciliation between dualities. Husserl, for instance, has followed Kant and

Brentano by collapsing the once-separate subject and object into a single act of intentionality.

Unlike the modern understanding of perception which suggests that objects cause particular and

definable sensations in the sense-perception of the observer, Husserl draws Kant’s noema and

noeisis into a single noetic union. Here the subject and object share ontological primacy and are

together found in the intentional act. There is an argument that the implicit assumption of this

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co-relationship between subjects and objects is that their conciliation is found in the human

subject (Harman, 2011). This argument may be found below. Merleau-Ponty (1942/1963) is

found accentuating this detail by his construction of a tiered hierarchy of beings. In review, the

phenomenological conciliation of subjects and objects is not without its own assumption. The

noetic union necessarily happens by way of the human subject; human perception (Merleau-

Ponty, 1945/1962), human consciousness (Husserl, 1970), and Dasein (Heidegger, 1927/1962)

each take center stage in what Merleau-Ponty has called the humanist conception of nature.

Meillassoux (2003/2012) has termed this otherwise unnamed humanist emphasis

“correlationism.” In psychology, problematic correlationism can be seen in efforts that in

principle deny modernist assumptions of nature. Maslow (1966) has been used to provide an

example of this in the literature review. Whitehead (1933/1967) argues that the subject-centric

philosophy has left out the equiprimacy of objects (that have being antecedent to subjects).

The present project aims at an investigation into nature which preserves the

interrelationships between its constituents by considering their mutual involvement in the event

of experience. It has already been argued that Whitehead’s (1938/1958) conciliation between

modern science and humanism is the project of psychology—particularly that of Wundt (1897),

James (1890/2007), and Fechner (1859/1966). Subject and object co-participate in the event of

experience and neither can be understood independently of the other. The event of experience

which combines subject and object will be called the psychophysical sub-objective event

following Rosen (2008). The present section will consider the role of the experiencing subject in

the psychophysical event. Returning to the literature review, consideration of the subject cannot

be reduced to the objective relations of entities which cause particular subjective experiences.

This is the assumption of 19th century mechanical-objective realism. But the subject also cannot

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be understood as an entity which itself causes the psychophysical event of experience thus

imperialistically giving life to objects. This is the humanist fallacy. Instead, the subject will be

found emerging in the context of sub-object relations through the psychophysical event of

experience. This is the subject as flesh (Merleau-Ponty, 1964/1968).

It is only as flesh that subjects and objects are able to conciliate in the event of

experience. This places the subjects and objects of psychology within nature. A psychology that

is consistent with Whitehead does not begin with separate aspects of experience. Indeed, it

begins with experience and seeks to understand the interrelated components. This is psychology

as the study of the sub-objective event of experience.

Two reasons for this starting point have been supplied in the introduction to this chapter:

first, the present project aims at understanding the psychological significance of a conciliated

conception of nature. As such, the psychological language of Wundt (1897) has been found

most appropriate. Second, following the mutually considered philosophies of Whitehead and

Merleau-Ponty, I argue that subject-entities and object-entities are contingent on the sub-

objective event of experience. That is, subject-ness and object-ness may only be understood in

relation to one another.

To repeat from the introduction to this chapter, by “subject”—which is short for Wundt’s

experiencing subject—I mean the entity that is provoked by another object-entity (Whitehead,

1933/1967); the prehending pole that is beckoned by a prehended pole (Whitehead 1929/1978,

1933/1967); and the sentient aspect that beholds a sense-attribute. In each of these instances, the

subject may only be understood in terms of the object which is occasion for subjectivity.

Though it has been customary to keep them separated, subject and object may be found

folding into one-another and overlapping in what Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) has termed flesh.

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The overlapping between independent events results in an intertwining such that the continued

discussion of separation within an event becomes increasingly impossible. Understood as flesh,

subjects and objects are understood as distinct, yet they overlap to such a degree that one

eventually has trouble deciding to which side of the duality each part belongs. Indeed, it soon

becomes understandable to speak of the subjectivity of objects, and the objectivity of subjects.

Whitehead (1929/1978; 1933/1967) has introduced the term prehension to describe the mutuality

of subject-object relating in a way that supplies ontological privilege to neither. This expands

the population to whom subjectivity and consciousness applies. Subjectivity begins to leave

behind the traditional (human) subject; consciousness begins to leave behind the traditionally

conscious (human). For example, Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) has proposed that consciousness

need not be limited to a human totality, but may be understood as emanating from appendages or

even tissue. Moreover, the question of objective or subjective continuity must be raised.

Whitehead, for example, prefers to use the term “individuality” to apply to humans as well as

atoms (1933/1967, p. 177). In expanding the notions of subjectivity, objectivity, consciousness,

and sentience, the subject of psychological investigation is found necessarily embedded in a

particular milieu, existing only as a constituent of the sub-objective event of experience.

Nature as Flesh

Where does my body end and external world begin? (Whitehead, 1938/1958, p.

155)

Where are we to put the limit between the body and the world, since the world is

flesh? (Merleau-Ponty, 1964/1968, p. 138)

As demonstrated in the literature review, nature has historically been reduced to material

objectivity and human subjectivity. What I propose is conciliation between each of these

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conceptions of nature. Before moving on to the exciting, creative, and living fabric of nature’s

becoming, we must first explore exactly what is meant by this. Merleau-Ponty’s (1964/1968)

unfinished adventure will be considered alongside Whitehead’s (1933/1967) neatly outlined

Adventures.

The comparison of Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty has much precedence. As already

indicated in his course on Nature, Merleau-Ponty (1956-57, 2003) has devoted a section to

Whitehead. Also included in the above discussion is the similarity between Whitehead’s

(1925/1953) criticisms of modernity and those of Merleau-Ponty (1942/1963). Indeed, Hamrick

(1999) has noted that “there are entire passages from each of these works that could have been

written by either writer” (p. 118). In their present coincidence, both have in mind a philosophy

that considers nature in light of its complicated interconnection of dualities, countenancing these

contradictions fully, and yielding a natural philosophy. This final mutual focus will be of

concern at present.

Whitehead’s conciliation of nature—one that “does not place humans outside of

nature”—has already received attention. Barbaras (1991/2004) has suggested that the same

might be said of Merleau-Ponty (particularly 1964/1968). Barbaras writes of The Visible and the

Invisible, “Insofar as it is a return to the originary field of experience, philosophy must provide

itself with a way of speaking that allows to appear both that about which it is speaking and that

which is speaking in it” (p. xxix). Before jumping into the reversibility of reader and text—

where these very words consciously intend your eye-saccades—a simpler example of Merleau-

Ponty’s flesh:

When we speak of the flesh of the visible, we do not mean to do anthropology, to

describe a world covered over with all our own projections, leaving aside what it

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can be under the human mask. Rather, we mean that carnal being, as a being of

depths, of several leaves or several faces, a being in latency, and a presentation of

a certain absence, is a prototype of Being, of which our body, the sensible

sentient, is a very remarkable variant, but whose constitutive paradox already lies

in every visible (p. 136).

Here Merleau-Ponty introduces his conception of nature as flesh. By centering on the paradoxes

as they arise in the human subject, he begins to see the intertwining across sensible and sentient

entities. Hands can be the vehicle of sense-perception—the ambassadors of human subjectivity.

But at the very next moment they can become objects to be sensed. Merleau-Ponty continues,

[T]o decide for this reason alone that our hands do not touch, and to relegate them

to the world of objects or of instruments, would be, in acquiescence to the

bifurcation of subject and object, to forego in advance the understanding of the

sensible and to deprive ourselves of its lights. We propose on the contrary to take

it literally to begin with. We say therefore that our body is a being of two leaves,

from one side a thing among things and otherwise what sees them and touches

them; we say, because it is evident, that it unites these two properties within itself,

and its double belongingness to the order of the “object” and to the order of the

“subject” reveals to us quite unexpected relations between the two orders (p. 137)

Instead of requiring that hands, cornucopias, and bicycle-helmets be neatly sorted into

categories of sensing and sensed, Merleau-Ponty recognizes that their categorical identities are

always on the verge of reversing. Naturally, reversibility makes the placement of subjects and

objects, sensing and sensed into neatly defined categories impossible. This is because their

classification is contingent on the event of experience. However, as soon as they are identified in

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the role as subject or object, the event has already passed. This leaves the former object-entity to

take on a subject-entity role and vice versa.

Reversibility. As mentioned above, Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) has suggested that the

term flesh stand in for the mutuality of subject-and-object interrelations. It is a word that does

not assume a collapse of duality, yet recognizes the fuzziness with which these categorized

entities present themselves. He explains,

What we are calling flesh, this interiorly worked-over mass, has no name in any

philosophy. As the formative medium of the object and the subject, it is not the

atom of being, the hard in itself that resides in a unique place and moment… We

must not think the flesh starting from substances, from body and spirit—for then

it would be the union of contradictories—but we must think it, as we said, as an

element, as the concrete emblem of a general manner of being. (p. 147)

Thus it is in this elemental state that we turn to nature as flesh.

To understand flesh, Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) has indicated that perception is an

insightful place to start. Moreover, insofar as the present project is interested in remaining

within the discourse of psychology, the psychophysical event of perception provides an apt

starting point. Merleau-Ponty explains,

Seeing, speaking, even thinking… are experiences of this kind [intertwined], both

irrecusable and enigmatic. They have a name in all languages, but a name which

in all of them also conveys significations in tufts, thickets of proper meanings and

figurative meanings, so that, unlike those of science, not one of these names

clarifies by attributing to what is named a circumscribed signification. … If we

could rediscover within the exercise of seeing and speaking some of the living

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references that assign them such a destiny in a language, perhaps they would

teach us how to form our new instruments, and first of all to understand our

research, our interrogation, themselves. (p. 130)

Here Merleau-Ponty describes perception as a discourse of and with nature. In the first moment

a particular thought (or sight, or sound), with apparent agency and individuality, is taken hold of

by an entity external to itself. But even in this declaration, the boundaries of individuality

between thought and its object begin to deteriorate. Indeed, the passive object takes hold of the

thought in a reversal of subject and object. This intertwining is less unusual in the visual and

musical arts. In a rare excursion outside the artistic realm of Impressionist painting, Merleau-

Ponty describes the intertwining of violinist and sonata:

We do not possess the musical or sensible ideas…; they possess us. The

performer is no longer producing or reproducing the sonata: he feels himself, and

the others feel him to be at the service of the sonata; the sonata sings through him

or cries out suddenly that he must “dash on his bow” to follow it. And these open

vortexes in the sonorous world finally form one sole vortex in which the ideas fit

in with one another. (p. 151)

The second-chair violinist is subservient to the sonata that emerges around and through him. So

too is the sheet of music. The music-stands, formal attire, and the couple in row E, seats three

and four are in harmony—they are each singular participants to, as well as constituent parts of

the sonata; they together comprise the flesh of the sonata.

There is strictly ideality in experiences that are experiences of the flesh: the

moments of the sonata, the fragments of the luminous field, adhere to one another

with a cohesion without concept, which is of the same type as the cohesion of the

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parts of my body, or the cohesion of my body with the world. Is my body a thing,

is it an idea? It is neither, being the measurant of the things. We will therefore

have to recognize an ideality that is not alien to the flesh, that gives it its axes, its

depth, its dimensions. (p. 152)

Examples from the arts like this one provided by Merleau-Ponty are common enough to

experience, but how about the more mundane activities such as buttoning up one’s shirt, loading

the dishwasher, or making the necessary arrangements to fly from Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson

International Airport to Gerald R. Ford International Airport: do these activities also lend

themselves to such reversibility? Given the ubiquity of these activities, Merleau-Ponty has found

them to be the best place to start.

Instead of investigating the familiar and easily imagined instances of losing oneself to

meet the demands of a novel, a painting, or a child’s first words, Merleau-Ponty considers the

most mundane sense-activity imaginable—touching one hand with the other. Set up with a

brilliantly low-tech design that would impress even Ramachandran, it is an exercise that anybody

reading could immediately put to practice. Merleau-Ponty demonstrates the reversibility of flesh

through the inter-, intra-corporeal tactile sense-contact between hands. This is the set up: using

your right hand, touch something with which you do not identify as part of your person. If you

are a man of 19th

century Victorian Aristocracy, this might be your silk ascot (or your genitalia).

Notice the investigative sense-action of hand touching in addition to the investigated sense-

object. Here we have two parts to the subject-object unity: right-hand-subject with sense-object

(silk ascot; Whitehead, 1929/1978, refers to this as the subject-superject unity). Merleau-Ponty

calls this part “right hand touching the things.” Merleau-Ponty argues that the sensorial

relationship between right hand and things is only possible because both entities are united in

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flesh. This could certainly mean that the investigated objects are sensing one’s right hand, but

such an experience can only be substantiated by speculation. The reversibility can only be

demonstrated with the human subject who is both sensible and sentient.

The argument being proposed in this project is that reversibility is the characteristic of all

nature. However, this does not mean that reversibility may be demonstrated throughout all of

nature. As it stands, the subject-object reversibility may only be demonstrated through the

human sub-objective event. This is because humans may be explored as an object and as a

subject, whereas the investigation of other entities in nature are limited to objective procedures.

The possibility of a phenomenology of nonhuman entities is explored in Section VII, and the

possibility of a psychology of nonhuman entities is explored in Section VIII. Here is how

reversibility may be demonstrated by the human subject. Introduce your left hand to the present

experiment and attempt the following: Touch your “right hand touching the things.” That is,

while maintaining the identity of right-hand-subject, introduce a left-hand-subject. Merleau-

Ponty explains what the experimenter no doubt finds:

My left hand is always on the verge of touching my right hand touching the

things, but I never reach coincidence; the coincidence eclipses at the moment of

realization, and one of two things always occurs: either my right hand really

passes over to the rank of touched, but then its hold on the world is interrupted; or

it retains its hold on the world, but then I do not really touch it—my right hand

touching, I palpate with my left hand only its outer covering. (p. 148)

After attempting part two of the do-it-yourself reversibility exercise, the role of “right hand

touching things” has reversed and it becomes a thing touched itself. Either this reversal occurs

or the left hand proves impotent to exercise a sensuous investigation of the right hand and

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remains at the rank of touched. The sentience of each handed-activity remains distinct from the

other; there are two sensing appendages. Their relationship, despite efforts at coordination,

remains one of opposition—touching or touched. But their respective roles of touching then

touched fold over and across one another with such frequency and clarity that it becomes

impossible to assign a singular identity of “touched” or “touching” to either. As flesh, the

opposition of touching-and-touched recognizes the diversity of nature’s interrelationships

without discarding the mutuality of the entities involved. That is, it may be understood that there

is a distance between sensing and sensed, but as soon as one begins to assign entities to either

side of the dualism one runs into a problem: the reversibility of flesh which spans across these

ontological chasms prevents any singular relational identities. This is because a single event

does not forever restrict an entity to any particular identity. A subject-entity may subsequently

be found playing the role of an object, beckoning another entity as subject into the sub-objective

relationship. Consider an example of this. One could imagine the task of dividing up

experiences into their separate components:

Consider how a neurotic, if presumptuous Juris Doctor turned rhetoric professor and

novelist might endeavor to slice apart experience with a Platonic scalpel, dividing it into piles

labeled “subject” and “object.” First up is the violinist and sonata. The language with which

they are spoken presents a perforated line for their easy separation into violinist:sonata. Now

which goes where? Given the reversibility across and between this dualism that has already been

discussed, our metaphysician has two options: (1) create a third category of “uncertainty” or (2)

place both entities in each of the categories. Platonic forms are irrecusable in present-day

Western thought; experience can always be thus divided. However, this does not mean that

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entities will unambiguously present themselves as one or the other. One finds that entities in

nature exhibit the properties and characteristics of both natura naturans and natura naturata.

Whitehead’s “Prehension” vs “Ap-prehension.” The examples that Merleau-Ponty

has provided for the reversibility between nature’s dualities allows for an expansion in such

concepts as “sentience” and “consciousness.” Whitehead’s (1929/1978; 1933/1967) notion of

prehension, which has been defined in the introduction to this chapter, will be useful in

understanding the relationships between subjects and objects when the two are replete with

instances of intertwining. Introduction of the term prehension will accomplish three tasks: (1) it

will provide a single term to indicate the subject-object relationship without demanding that

either side of the duality remain stuck in a category; (2) it is a term that applies equally well to

humans as well as other subjectivities; and (3) it avoids the assumption that the subject-object

action is akin to the problematic “knower-known” distinction made above by Whitehead—

problems that would present with subjective action words like apprehension, knowledge (of), and

consciousness (of). The latter-most task will be discussed first.

Whitehead’s introduction of the term prehension, used to describe the subjective action

between subject-object interrelations, may be considered in relation to the more typical term used

to describe the relationship between subjects and their objects: apprehension. I have found it

useful to consider the difference between prehension and apprehension by analogy to the

perception of nature as viewed from the “East and West” (Suzuki, Fromm, & deMartino, 1960).

As indicated by the title, Suzuki juxtaposes the manner by which nature has been conceived by

Eastern and Western thought. He does this by the presentation of two poems. The first is a

Haiku written by the Japanese poet Basho (1644-1694), and the second is a short poem written

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by the English poet Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892). Both poems consider the relationship

between subject (human) and object (Nature) through the observation of a flower. Basho writes,

When I look carefully

I see the nazuna blooming

by the hedge!

Yoku mireba

Nazuna hana saku

Kakine kana

(Japanese provided for those readers who want to check the poet’s parsing of

syllables; p. 1)

For which Suzuki provides the following commentary:

Most Westerners are apt to alienate themselves from nature. They think man and

nature have nothing in common except in some desirable aspects, and that nature

exists only to be utilized by man.

But to Eastern people nature is very close. This feeling for nature was

stirred when Basho discovered an inconspicuous, almost negligible plant

blooming by the old dilapidated hedge along the remote country road, so

innocently, so unpretentiously, not at all desiring to be noticed by anybody. Yet

when one looks at it, how tender, how full of divine glory or splendor more

glorious than Solomon’s Kingly attire it is. Its very humbleness, its unostentatious

beauty, evokes one’s sincere admiration. The poet can read in every petal the

deepest mystery of life and being. (p. 2)

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The expression of the relationship of human and nature found in Eastern culture is then

compared with this relationship in Western culture. Tennyson is chosen because his poem shares

much in common with that of Basho.

Flower in the crannied wall,

I pluck you out of the crannies:-

Hold you here, root and all, in my hand,

Little flower – but if I could understand

What you are, root and all, and all in all,

I should know what God and man is. (p. 3)

Again in commentary, Suzuki explains:

Tennyson… is active and analytical. He first plucks the flower from the place

where it grows. He separates it from the ground where it belongs. Quite

differently from the Oriental poet, he does not leave the flower alone. He must

tear it away from the crannied wall, “root and all,” which means that the plant

must die. He does not, apparently, care for its destiny; his curiosity must be

satisfied. (p. 3)

As Suzuki has found them, both poets are interested in the investigation of nature. Also, both

have found the latter just beyond reach. Using the language of Whitehead, I understand that

Basho has prehended the nazuna while Tennyson has ap-prehended the flower in the crannied

wall. Basho has observed the flower, careful not to disrupt it; Tennyson has observed the flower

by tearing it from its environment and cupping it in his hands. In the instance of Basho’s

prehension of the Nazuna, space is left for the reversibility of subject and superject: Basho

prehends nazuna; nazuna prehends Basho. Rather than anthropomorphizing the flower, Suzuki

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anticipates that the shift in activity/passivity as it is experienced by Basho. Basho begins as the

explorer—discovering an inconspicuous flower that rests humbly nearby; then a reversal occurs

and it is the flower which now demands Basho’s admiration. Prehension applies equally to both

examples of activity/passivity between Basho and flower.

As told by Suzuki, the similarity between Tennyson’s hands-on approach and the

modernist conception of nature is apparent. Just as Whitehead has observed in the practice of

modern scientists, Tennyson has torn the flower from its environment in order to investigate

flower as a discrete, finite object. This can be understood as a literal example of “vicious

bifurcation” as the flower will now likely die. There is no confusion regarding the roles of

knower and known, active and passive, subject and object. Tennyson has literally taken hold of

the flower as a definite and discrete thing. Tennyson is the lone subject midst a sea of objects;

the former explores while the latter stands passively by.

Suzuki’s analysis of nature “East and West” provides an insightful analogy for

understanding Whitehead’s term prehension and the subject-centered activity it has replaced.

Now that prehension is better understood, we must return at once to this distinction between

poets that Suzuki has presented. Suzuki seems to be presenting right and wrong ways of

investigating nature. Now we find that Suzuki’s distinction is itself problematic. Basho is

understood to be the more compassionate, concerned, and truly curious of the two poets. While

Tennyson, now with dirt behind his ears and beneath his fingernails, is understood to have made

a complete mess of things. Suzuki’s distinction only holds if it is assumed that these poets are in

nature and not of nature. Since the present project has been aimed at conciliated nature, it has

been maintained that humans are of nature and not in nature. That is, human is just as much an

expression of nature as are the tornados that unearth entire fields of daisies. Though Basho is an

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apt ambassador of Whitehead’s term prehension, his is no better an example of prehension than

is Tennyson’s. Basho represents natura naturans insofar as we have understood the dynamic

reversibility of prehending/prehended, and he presents natura naturata insofar as he, the nazuna,

and the deepest mystery of life are understood as distinct individuals. Tennyson is but another

instance of natura naturans and natura naturata. Both poets are expressions of nature, and both

are subject to the prehending/prehended reversibility relationship with nature.

I have used Suzuki’s comparison of Eastern and Western approaches to nature in order to

discern Whitehead’s term prehension from the term apprehension it has been used to replace.

After shedding the more familiar term, Suzuki’s comparison was considered once again with the

aid the new term. Upon second review, the difference between these two poets evaporates when

poets are understood as constituents of nature and not explorers in nature—an assumption that

Suzuki has made. Indeed, both poets must be placed in each category because they both have

encountered nature in its static and dynamic forms. Thus the subject/object reversibility allowed

by the term “prehension” is applicable to both instances, and neither poet is a greater or lesser

example of nature than the other.

Prehension in Perception. Shaviro (2012) has indicated the importance of Whitehead’s

introduction of the term prehension: “To avoid the anthropomorphic—or at least cognitive and

rationalistic—connotations of words like ‘mentality’ and ‘perception,’ Whitehead uses the term

prehension for the act by which one actual occasion takes up and responds to another” (p. 28). If

it is maintained that the roles of subject and object are in every instance capable of reversing

their roles, then what is to be said regarding perception? Who perceives whom? In the above

discussion, the relationship between subject and object as “knower-known” has been argued

against, because this necessarily places the “knower,” cape and all, outside of nature. This has

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been challenged by Merleau-Ponty’s demonstration of reversibility between knower-known/

subject-object. However, the evidence he has provided has been by-way-of perception. So

again, what is to be said regarding perception? Like the categories of “subject” and “object,”

perception cannot be discarded; but again like these categories, the notion of perception must be

expanded. “But the point on which I am insisting is that this meaning is limited, and that there is

a wider meaning with which this limited use of the term ‘perception’ has been tacitly identified”

(Whitehead, 1933/1967, p. 178).

In considering the reversibility of objects and subjects in perception, Merleau-Ponty and

Whitehead both take up the perception of the color red. First, Whitehead (1933/1967) provides a

caricature of this as a perceptive apprehension (knower-known relationship) of subject to an

object:

Gaze at a patch of red. In itself as an object, and apart from other factors of

concern, this patch of red, as the mere object of that present act of perception, is

silent as to the past or the future. How it originates, how it will vanish, whether

indeed there was a past, and whether there will be a future, are not disclosed by its

own nature. (p. 180)

Whitehead explains that this tendency to posit static and discrete patches of red of such-and-such

a degree of saturation in perception is due to the “uncritical use of current forms of speech” that

has been introduced by the “epistemologies of the last two hundred years” (p. 181). These

apparently discrete and static sense-data are rife with all manner of horizonal intertwinings. Not

only has Gestalt psychology (e.g. Köhler, 1947/1957) well demonstrated the dynamic interplay

between inner and outer horizons, but Whitehead identifies a host of additional non-sensuous

object-data that interfere with such clean perception.

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But the evidence on which these interpretations are based is entirely drawn from

the vast background and foreground of non-sensuous perception with which

sense-perception is fused, and without which it can never be. We can discern no

clean-cut sense-perception wholly concerned with present fact. (p. 181, emphasis

added)

The patch of red is scarcely limited to a single matter-of-fact. Its presentation brings with it its

sensuous and non-sensuous contextual environment. Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) explains how

the color red bears with it the entire constellation of universal being—the “mystery of being” as

Suzuki has observed in his poets.

The red dress a fortiori holds with all its fibers onto the fabric of the visible, and

thereby onto a fabric of invisible being. A punctuation in the field of red things,

which includes the tiles of roof tops, the flags of gatekeepers and of the

Revolution, certain terrains near Aix or in Madagascar, it is also a punctuation in

the field of red which includes, along with the dresses of women, robes of

professors, bishops, and advocate generals, and also in the field of adornments

and that of uniforms. (p. 132)

And continues,

If we took all these participations into account, we would recognize that a naked

color, and in general a visible, is not a chunk of absolutely hard, indivisible being,

offered all naked to a vision which could be only total or null, but is rather a sort

of straits between exterior horizons and interior horizons ever gaping open,

something that comes to touch lightly and makes diverse regions of the colored or

visible world resound at the distances, a certain differentiation, an ephemeral

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modulation of this world—less a color or a thing, therefore, than a difference

between things and colors, a momentary crystallization of colored being or of

visibility. Between the alleged colors and visible, we would find anew the tissue

that lines them, sustains them, nourishes them, and which for its part is not a

thing, but a possibility, a latency, and a flesh of things. (pp. 132-133)

Even in perception conceived as mere sense-data, reversibility ensues. Subject and object

combine to form a mysterious sub-objective event. This is discussed as phenomenological

psychophysics in Section IV. Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968; Dillon, 1988/1998) refers to this unity

as a chiasm, écart, or divergence. The nature of this divergent relationship will be considered in

Section III. To say that reversibility may be found in all perception studies implicates the

perceptions gathered by tachistoscopes, skin-conductance monitors, and thematic apperception

tests. Like Basho and Tennyson, each of these modes of perception as perception are subject to

the reversibility of flesh, and as such equally represent nature in its most static and most dynamic

forms. This means that even the most physicalist experimental protocols of 19th

century

perception must necessarily recognize the phenomenological component of psychological

experience. The example of Fechnerian (1859/1966) psychophysics is considered in Section IV.

With a sufficiently broad consideration of Merleau-Ponty’s notion of nature as flesh, to

which Whitehead’s term “prehension” has been applied, the final movement toward an

investigation of conciliated nature is ready. It has been seen how subject and object, when

understood as flesh, are always on the verge of reversing roles. This reversal may be

experienced within a human subject. Here a human body may be found playing roles of

experiencing subject and object of experience. Reversibility may also be used to understand the

relationship between an experiencing subject and an object of experience within the subject’s

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environmental surrounding, but to project sentience into the environmental surround remains at

the level of speculation (which may be seen in Sections V and VI). The affective charge of this

dynamic interrelation has been termed “prehension” so as to allow for a greater flexibility than

one finds with words such as “apprehension” or “knowledge,” terms which suggest that an

observer stands over and above nature. When understood from the vantage point of the

prehending human, this shift in language is agreeable, if a bit peculiar. However, the objective

here is not merely to soften the language regarding the relationship between subject and object,

but to introduce a language that spans the flexibility that these terms now have.

Subjectivity of Flesh, or Subjectless Subjectivity

Together, Merleau-Ponty and Whitehead have described and have been used to describe

several occasions of the dynamic and static interrelations between subjects and objects. When

allowing for the reversibility between the roles of subject and object—roles that forever stand

opposed to one another as passive and active—attention has been given to the impact had on the

human in perception. Whitehead (1933/1967) explains how this specific instance of (human)

consciousness is perhaps just one of a possible many:

But this conscious discrimination, which is knowledge, is nothing more than an

additional factor in the subjective form of the interplay of subject with object.

This interplay is the stuff constituting those individual things which make up the

sole reality of the Universe. These individual things are the individual occasions

of experience, the actual occasions. (p. 177)

Individuality need not be restricted to human forms. “As used here the words ‘individual’ and

‘atom’ have the same meaning, that they apply to composite things with an absolute reality

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which their components lack” (p. 177). Perception with and of the human body will be used to

extend the notions of subjectivity and consciousness beyond their singular organismic totality.

Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) provides another frighteningly simple do-it-yourself-

experiment that demonstrates the many consciousnesses that the human subject entertains. This

time there is only a single instruction: take hold of any object that is sufficient enough that it may

be grasped with both hands. Given my current environment, I am finding it exceedingly difficult

to avoid the object of the computer’s keyboard. For the reader, this might be the discrete

objective totality of these pages, however they have been bound. Consider the keyboard. My

fingertips rest on an expanse of keys that are homogenous to the touch but heterogenous in

capacity. However, it is one keyboard. Though I have two hands, they survey a single keyboard

and do so with a single objective. With an intact corpus collosum, I do not know what it would

be like to engineer two papers simultaneously—one tasked to the right hand and the other tasked

to the left. Given the apparent bi-lateral collaboration, is this sufficient to suggest the mediation

of one consciousness? Merleau-Ponty explains his analysis of this experiment:

But for my two hands to open upon one sole world, it does not suffice that they be

given to one sole consciousness—or if that were the case the difficulty before us

would disappear: since other bodies would be known by me in the same way as

would be my own, they and I would still be dealing with the same world.

Here Merleau-Ponty refers to a previous example he has given. When speaking aloud, the

auditory experience of my own voice, muffled also through my sinuses, is far different from the

auditory experience I have of the voice of another. It is even different than the auditory

experience I have of my own voice when it has been played back for me. In each case,

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something must be said for this transformation—there must be more than one single

consciousness responsible for the integration of sense-data. He continues,

If nonetheless they have to do with one sole tangible, it is because there exists a

very peculiar relation from one to the other, across the corporeal space—like that

holding between my two eyes—making of my hands one sole organ of

experience, as it makes of my two eyes the channels of one sole Cyclopean vision.

… these little subjectivities… could be assembled like flowers into a bouquet,

when each being “consciousness of,” being For Itself, reduces the others into

objects. We will get out of the difficulty only be renouncing the bifurcation of the

“consciousness of” the object, by admitting that my synergetic body is not an

object, that it assembles into a cluster the “consciousnesses” adherent to its hands,

to its eyes, by an operation that is in relation to them later, transversal; that “my

consciousness” is not the synthetic, uncreated, centrifugal unity of a multitude of

“consciousnesses of…” which would be centrifugal like it is, that it is sustained,

subtended, by the prereflective and preobjective unity of my body. (pp. 141-142)

Merleau-Ponty explains how the unification between the object as experienced through the right

hand with that through the left is less of a single subjectification than it is conciliation between

two subjectifications. Each hand represents an intentional consciousness—a being-towards

book, keyboard, or plastic c-4 explosives. These subjectifications, these “consciousnesses of…”

(indicating the intentionality of Brentano) are collected together into a bouquet—a bouquet of

experience. In his Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty recognizes that this bouquet

had been unified into a single, deified, primordial consciousness. This is why he was earlier

quoted saying that “The problems posed in Ph.P. are insoluble because I start there from the

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‘consciousness’-‘object’ distinction” (p. 200). If this primordial, super-natural consciousness is

suspended, then the unified object as touched by the right and left hands will begin to emerge as

distinct “consciousnesses of…” that nevertheless find cohesion. To the ranks of subjectivities,

the unified version of human subjectivity is added. Instead of being left with a definite

consciousness and a definite object-of-consciousness, one finds a singular occasion of becoming

through which the roles previously played: subject, object, independent entity, etc., continually

perish from which new roles are played, and so on. All of this may be seen without leaving the

human subject. Merleau-Ponty explains that this may be extended to nature writ large:

If one wants metaphors, it would be better to say that the body sensed and the

body sentient are as the obverse and the reverse, or again, as two segments of one

sole circular course which goes above from left to right and below from right to

left, but which is but one sole movement in its two phases. And everything said

about the sensed body pertains to the whole of the sensible of which it is a part,

and to the world. (p. 138)

Moving beyond the orthodox human subject. Merleau-Ponty has done well to show

that it is not necessary to assume an imperial subject—a subject whose command was originally

thought to order the world. Indeed, doing so puts this subject (consciousness, language) over and

above nature. By keeping the subject as an instance of nature—nature made subject—then the

bifurcation of nature no longer requires that battles of ontological primacy be fought. Doing so

also allows a single language, applicable to nature in its multiplicity and singularity, to be

discussed and explored. This has been demonstrated in the act of perception in two ways. First,

Merleau-Ponty has demonstrated how the roles of subject and object are always on the verge of

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reversing; second, the unified subjectivity across subjectivities can be understood as an occasion

by which the collection of subjects are increased by one (and not reduced to one).

If it is accepted that subjectivity applies not only to one’s unified embodied subjectivity,

but may also apply to the various appendages of sense-perception, then perhaps the notion of

subjectivity can leave behind the human entirely. Merleau-Ponty suggests that the reversibility

of flesh requires this extension.

Through this crisscrossing within it of the touching and the tangible, its own

movements incorporate themselves into the universe they interrogate, are

recorded on the same map as it; the two systems are applied upon one another, as

the two halves of an orange. (p. 133)

By limiting the role of subjectivity to the human observer (and her appendages), then the

reversibility between human and nature would be impossible. Once again, this places the human

over and above nature—a position which great care has been taken to avoid. “It suffices for us

for the moment to note that he who sees cannot possess the visible unless he is possessed by it,

unless he is of it…” (pp. 134-135). Though bifurcated, nature does not hierarchize its constituent

entities: all are included and, moreover, each entity fits equally well into the categories supplied

by nature’s historical bifurcation. “Since the same body sees and touches, visible and tangible

belong to the same world” (p. 134).

It is not necessary to limit the sub-objective event of experience to human subjects.

Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty may both be found expanding the notion of subjectivity to include

nonhumans. However, as Sections V and VI will show, the argument for the subjectivity,

phenomenology, and psychology of nonhuman entities remains at the level of philosophical

speculation. This means that the nonhuman subject cannot be empirically investigated as a

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nonanthropomorphic subject. What remains is a theoretical argument for the roles of “subject”

and “object” sans human. Whitehead finds that his extensive training in mathematics supplies

the method necessary for doing so. He explains how in mathematical studies, “it is a sound

method to … divest the problem of details irrelevant to the solution. Let us therefore give a

general description of this personal unity by divesting it of minor details of humanity” (p. 187).

As an example of “divesting” nature of this detail, he goes to the most dogmatically held

assumption about humans—personal identity or self. Whitehead (1933/1967) likens the human

self to Plato’s receptacle, as discussed in the Timaeus:

In addition to the notions of the welter of events and of the forms which they

illustrate, we require a third term, personal unity. It is a perplexed and obscure

concept. We must conceive it the receptacle, the foster-mother as I might say, of

the becoming of our occasions of experience. This personal identity is the thing

which receives all occasions of the man’s existence. It is there as a natural matrix

for all transitions of life, and is changed and variously figured by the things that

enter it; so that it is different in its character at different times. … It is a locus

which persists…. (p. 187)

The very definiteness of a given self of a human, if maintained, makes Merleau-Ponty’s

reversibility impossible. In order for the objects that one touches to reverse roles with the

subject, then one must allow that objects participate in the creation of one’s individual

constellation of congealed occasions. Whitehead explains that this argument in favor of the

uncompromising definiteness of human individuality is “only superficial”. He explains: “If

human occasions of experience essentially inherent in one-dimensional personal order, there is a

gap between human occasions and the physical occasions of nature” (p. 189). Again, when

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maintaining the singularity of human individuality, one places said humans over and above

nature. Instead, Whitehead proposes that humans and their identities be considered as part of

nature. “But the human body is indubitably a complex of occasions which are part of spatial

nature. It is a set of occasions miraculously coordinated so as to pour its inheritance into various

regions within the brain” (p. 189). The dynamic constellation of occasions comprise human qua

natura naturans; the complicated networks of neuro-biology comprise the human qua natura

naturata. However, as it has been maintained thus far—placing either of these examples into

one and only one category has itself become problematic. The specific difficulty of doing so

between physiological and psychological orders has been considered above in the literature

review.

It is worth mentioning here that Whitehead’s description of human individuality has been

used to construct a process-psychotherapy (Moss, 1995). As indicated in the neo-Freudian

psychotherapeutic tradition, and certainly through the social-critical trends, the self considered as

a static and unchanging collection of biographical details is a problematic assumption that is

responsible for many restricted capacities for being. Using Whitehead, Moss has encouraged

clients to begin looking at their sedimentary-individualities as occasions that are continually

becoming and perishing.

For now, Whitehead has just given us justification for divesting the present inquiry of the

detail of the human so as to consider nonhuman subjectivity, that is, “an event that is in-itself and

for-itself, and not as from its aspect in the essence of another such occasion” (Whitehead,

1925/1953, p. 89).

Subjectless subjectivity. Since “subjectivity” has a long tradition of being a uniquely

human role, the reference to nonhuman subjects has been called “subjectless subjectivity”

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(Bains, 2002). By shedding the privilege or exclusivity of human subjectivity in order to

consider subjectless subjectivities, the problem of anthropocentrism dissipates. However, one is

not yet prepared to proceed. The next problem that emerges is that of anthropomorphism. This

is the assumption that smart-phones, cocker-spaniels, and pyrite all prehend the world with

affectual relations similar to those of humans. It must again be stated that the argument for a

non-anthropomorphic and non-anthropocentric subjectivity remains at the level of theoretical

defense; the present project has been unable to demonstrate a method for investigating a

nonhuman subjectivity without committing the errors of anthropomorphism and

anthropocentrism. Continuing with the theoretical defense of a non-anthropomorphic and

subjectless subjectivity, Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) explains:

The body interposed is not itself a thing, an interstitial matter, a connective tissue,

but a sensible for itself, which means, not that absurdity: color that sees itself,

surface that touches itself—but this paradox[?]5: a set of colors and surfaces

inhabited by a touch, a vision, hence an exemplar sensible… caught up in the

tissue of the things, it draws in entirely to itself, incorporates it, and, with the

same movement, communicates to the things upon which it closes over that

identity without superposition, that differences without contradiction, that

divergence between the within and the without that constitutes its natal secret.

The body unites us directly with the things through its own ontogenesis, by

welding to one another the two outlines of which it is made, its two laps: the

sensible mass it is and the mass of the sensible wherein it is born by segregation

and upon which, as seer, it remains open. (pp. 135-136)

5 Given the unfinished state in which it was found, the editors have found that this word was sufficiently unclear so

as to indicate its ambiguity.

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It will not be sufficient to attribute human concern to the subjectivity of nonhuman things.

Merleau-Ponty instead suggests that the key to understanding “identity without superposition”

and “differences without contradiction” is through ontogenesis—of which the body is an

example. If ontogenesis is the becoming of ontic substances through dynamic subjectification,

then autopoiesis can be understood as the becoming of an individuality (consciousness, self,

subject). Bains (2002) explains,

[A] definition of autonomy or autopoiesis distinguishes itself from any purely

thermodynamic definition that is solely constituted by relational flows. An

autopoietic event has an endo-consistency that is lacking in a vortex or dissipative

structure defined only by its relational flows with the surrounding medium. A

baby or a molecule or a paramecium is not in and of itself a whirlpool or vortex or

a wave or a crystal although it involves dissipative structures and can display

vortex-like ‘behavior’. It is a sovereign individual autonomy with an intrinsic

existential reality or self-referential territory, even though it has relations with

other existential territories. It is a value that is an end in itself—for its own sake.

Very few philosophers… have attempted to think the possibility of an existential

integrity that is at the same time in relation with other self-referential territories or

events. (pp. 102-13)

Indeed, Bains has considered babies, molecules, and paramecia without recourse to

anthropomorphism or anthropocentrism. Furthermore, each demonstrates what could be

understood as a unique autopoeitic process—complete with relations to other territories and a

unique and distinct existential integrity. This does not, however, mean that shoelaces,

lampshades, and miracle grow must constantly review themselves as if by way of a mirror—this

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type of conscious self-reflexivity is not what is meant by subjectivity. A subject need not

recognize its singularity and autonomy as subject. That is, a subject need not be conscious of its

subjectivity. Now we must add “consciousness” to Whitehead’s garbage pail of discarded

details.

Intentional unconscious. In developing the language with which to discuss conciliated

nature, we have found it necessary to momentarily shed the detail of the human. This is because

subjectivity has traditionally been reserved for the human subject. However, Merleau-Ponty’s

discussion of flesh suggests that the reversibility that one experiences as a subject-object must

also extend to the objects one prehends. By refusing to extend reversibility to nonhuman objects,

one necessarily places humanity over and above nature. Once again, this is precisely what is

trying to be avoided in the present project. After migrating across the chasm from human

subjectivity to nonhuman subjectivity, termed “subjectless subjectivity” above—all the while

careful not to fall into the trap of anthropomorphism—the first problem that arises is the

assumption that subjectivity must be self-conscious. Returning again to the anthropocentrically

self-conscious human, the notions of consciousness and self-consciousness must be dealt with.

Phenomenology qua Brentano has kidnapped consciousness—and objects there entertained—and

chained it forever to the intentional human. In order to free consciousness from this usage, it

must be moved to the end of the batting line-up—that is, consciousness must lose its primacy

through which it has held sway over the universe. Unconsciousness—the non self-reflective and

nonanthropomorphic notion of subjective prehension which applies to humans as well as

humvees—will instead be considered primary. This, Bains observes, is contrary to the more

typical correlationist discussions of subjectivity where consciousness is concerned:

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This phenomenological subjectivity is characterized by a particular (bizarre)

understanding of visual perception and does not envisage the possibility of a

subjectivity… that does not operate in the mode of phenomenology’s

understanding of visual perception but is rather a direct non-discursive auto-

possession—a non-human for-itself. (p. 105)

By giving up the uniquely human, self-reflective consciousness—subtracting this capacity even

from the human—one risks losing privileged capacities such as will, intention, and agency. This

is why “consciousness” has been momentarily replaced with “unconsciousness.” The latter is

less-likely to carry with it the baggage of the recently mentioned privileged human capacities.

As soon as consciousness loses its super-natural privilege, it may once again be used to describe

the process of folding a necktie into a full-Windsor.

Brian Massumi (1995) tells a story that will help us begin to “shed the detail” of super-

natural human consciousness. It is a description of Libet’s (1985) experiment that demonstrates

that intentional action actually precedes intentional desire, will, logic, and any form of self-

referentiality. He explains,

Brain waves of healthy volunteers were monitored by an electroencephalograph

(EEG) machine. The subjects were asked to flex a finger at a moment of their

choosing, and to note the time of their decision on a clock. The flexes came 0.2

seconds after they clocked the decision. But the EEG machine registered

significant brain activity 0.3 seconds before the decision. (p. 90)

For which Massumi provides the following commentary,

It should be noted in particular that during the mysterious half-second [between

brain function and response], what we think of as “higher” functions, such as

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volition, are apparently being performed by autonomic, bodily reactions occurring

in the brain but outside consciousness, and between brain and finger, but prior to

action and expression. (p. 90)

It seems as though this privileged, ontologically primary access to the world—that is, super-

natural consciousness—actually follows the actions it is said to facilitate. In returning to the

previous problem presented by the non self-reflective subjectivity of my shoelaces: if self-

reflection is the sticking point necessary for subjectivity to hold, then it seems that human

subjects also fall short. Of course this is only until consciousness loses its super-Natural

privilege and ontological primacy. Instead of maintaining the correlationist assumption that

consciousness is a uniquely human phenomenon, Bains has found insight from the French

philosopher of biology, Raymond Ruyer (1902-1987). Ruyer (1966) explains the difficulty in

considering a subjectless subjectivity:

“But it is very difficult, in spite of oneself, to not be led to think that a being that

is conscious of its own form represents a more mysterious type of consciousness

than a being that is conscious, through modulations of sensory information, of the

form of exterior objects. It is very difficult to admit that a protoplasm, a molecular

edifice, and embryo, an organic tissue or a cortex, are conscious of themselves

(possess their own form) before becoming, by added modulation, conscious of the

form of other beings, and without being obliged to pass by this detour. (p. 167; in

Bains, 2002, p. 113).

To be sure, considering the consciousnesses of thumbtacks and particle boards challenges the

limits of comfortably orthodox philosophical thought. However, the philosophers that have been

engaged in the present paper give no indication that comfort or orthodoxy is in any way

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guaranteed. Indeed, a faithful commitment to their insights requires an expansion of the

traditional notion of subjectivity. Merleau-Ponty’s concepts of flesh and reversibility allow for a

complicated subject-object interrelationship that avoids their correlationist collapse into human

subject; Whitehead’s concept of prehension provides a language of intentionality that applies

equally well to subjects and objects, allowing for the flexibility in these terms required by their

reversibility.

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Section II: Objects of Experience

There is a determinate reality, at least at a certain degree of relativity. … Thus it

seems that we are led to a contradiction: belief in the thing and the world must

entail the presumption of a completed synthesis—and yet this completion is made

impossible by the very nature of the perspectives which have to be inter-related,

since each one of them, by virtue of its horizons, refers to other perspectives, and

so on indefinitely. (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962, p. 330)

This section will focus on the object of the sub-objective event of experience. It will be

argued that there are no objects outside of the experiential event. However, this does not mean

that there is nothing that is antecedent to the event of experience. Antecedent events become

differentiated as objects only in the event of experience. The objects of primary interest are

those that pertain to psychology—namely, Wundt’s (1897) “objects of experience.” The

meaning and constancy of such objects is only found by way of their intentional interaction with

experiencing subjects.

As constituents of sub-objective events, objects can only be meaningfully understood

within the context of an event of experience. There are arguments that objects participate with

other objects in what might be understood as events of experience and thus have some being

outside of events of human experience (Harman, 2002/2006, 2005; Bogost, 2012). Such objects

are understood to be known through the event of object-object relations. Whether or not object-

object events might constitute a psychology will be explored in Section VI. The benefit of

considering the object of experience as a psychophysical event-object may be found in its

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capacity to yield both objective and subjective data. That is, as an object of experience, an object

may be investigated through objective measures (e.g. 19th century mechanical-objective realism)

and subjective measures (e.g., 20th century phenomenological methods or quantum physical

methods qua Stapp, 2011). The subjective pole of an object cannot be gathered from the object’s

subjectivity; nonanthropomorphic methods for this have not yet been established. Methods of

exploring the physical universe have been developed over many centuries, and have done so

rapidly of late with respect to the human body. Since phenomenological methods have only been

developed for the phenomenological investigation of human experience, objects of experience

will be limited to those of human experience. The experience of nonhuman entities is explored

in Sections V and VI where it is argued that such experience is necessarily anthropomorphic and

speculative. Instead, the subjective pole of an object will be gathered from the perspective of the

human observer who is beckoned to the object as such. This provides a subjective account of the

object in question. Taken together, subjective and objective tools of investigation yield

psychophysical data which is not exactly psychical and not exactly physical; psychophysics

emphasizes the sub-objective event of experience. This section considers the object-pole of this

event.

It will be argued that objects may only be understood in the context of a sub-objective

event of experience in two ways. First, the attributes or sense-characteristics by which an object

is discerned as such are only attributes to a subject, and do not exist in a vacuum. Moreover,

these attributes are empirical qualities—that is, their description is limited to human sense-

qualities. It is impossible to conceive of an object that has attributes that are foreign to human

sense—for example, an object in-itself-for-aliens. Such objects would either resist synthesis in

consciousness, or they would be commandeered by the subject as a familiar object (that is, taken

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as in-itself-for-me). This leads to the second argument for the event-contingent-object: the

constancy of an object does not exist within the object, but is attributed to an object by an

experiencing subject.

Classical Objects

The theory that objects exist as fixed entities is the position held by classical physics (and

adopted by early 20th

century psychology). Insofar as these objects are of interest to

psychologists, the classical view maintains that each object has a fixed set of qualities—

hardness, loudness, brightness, etc.—and may be understood in-itself as a combination of each of

these. Thus, objects of classical psychology are understood as sense-data lying in wait. This is

the position to which Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962, 1942/1963, 1948/2004) is in opposition. He

explains:

If we consult the classical psychology textbook, it will tell us that an object is a

system of properties which present themselves to our various senses and which

are united by an act of intellectual synthesis. For example, this lemon is a bulging

oval shape with two ends plus this yellow colour plus this fresh feel plus this

acidic taste… This analysis, however, is far from satisfactory: it is not clear how

each of these qualities or properties is bound to the others and yet is seems to us

that the lemon is a unified entity of which all these various qualities are merely

different manifestations. (1948/2004, p. 45)

Merleau-Ponty argues that the object—in his example a lemon—is the coherence or synthesis of

each of these sense-attributes. By removing any one of these sense-characteristics, one alters

those that remain. The lemon is the unity of these sense-characteristics—it is the emergent

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Gestalt from which these characteristics are given meaning. Ménasé (2004) provides the

following in commentary:

The view [Merleau-Ponty] opposes is one which regards [objects] as substances

which we experience in a variety of unconnected ways, and whose intrinsic

properties have no essential relation to our experience of them. By contrast

Merleau-Ponty holds that our experiences are interconnected and reveal to us real

properties of the thing itself, which is much as it appears and not some hidden

substance that lies beneath our experience of its appearance. (pp. 17-18)

Ménasé includes an important point at the end of this passage. He explains that it is by way of

experience that we come to understand the object in-itself. This must not be understood as a

contradiction. The classical view approaches the limit of the object in-itself by combining

unconnected sense-characteristics of the object in question—this is the view which Merleau-

Ponty is against. How then is one to understand the argument for objects in-themselves? Sense-

objects, or objects of experience are only objects insofar as they are entertained in a sub-

objective event. The object only gets its object-ness by-way-of a participating subject. This does

not preclude an entity from having some existence absent a participating observer, but in order

for an object to have some constancy through time can only be substantiated by an observer.

That is, an object is defined by its attributes entertained in an event of experience.

I argue that the characteristics of objects which have been classically understood to reside

within the object in-itself are actually attributes of experience. Once again, this does not

preclude entities—even objects—from having some existence absent humans, but that positing

said existence can only be substantiated by speculation and labeling this an experience “as”

anything is necessarily anthropomorphic. Whitehead (1920/2012) argues that an object may

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only be understood in what he terms a ‘situation’ (p. 41). As such, an object gets its attributes

and meaning from its context within an event of experience. Whitehead defines three types of

objects: sense-objects, objects of perception, and scientific objects (pp. 75-83). Each of these

may only be understood in the context of an event which depends on the objects situatedness

relative to a participating observer. Briefly, by “sense-object” Whitehead has in mind the sense-

attributes of the object in question—color, loudness, etc; “by object of perception” Whitehead

has in mind the Gestalt form from which the sense characteristics are gathered—the color of the

coat, the loudness of the orchestra, etc; by “object of science” Whitehead has in mind the sense-

characteristics available to empirical measurement—luminosity, pitch, etc. I maintain that each

of Whitehead’s objects may only be understood as constituents of the sub-objective Gestalt-

event. The sense-object and object of perception will be considered as “objects of experience” at

present, but Section IV provides the argument for the Gestalt events from which objects of

science are discerned.

Familiarity and Object-constancy

My argument is that objects, as they are disclosed in experience, are not the entities to

which collections of sense-attributes belong. This is to suppose that objects exist as bundles of

familiar empirical attributes which can be present to or veiled from a perceiving subject. Sense

attributes do not belong to the object; indeed, the object-ness does not even belong to the object.

The object belongs to the sub-objective event of experience that is an occasion of familiarity.

This begins with several examples of why sense-attributes do not belong to objects. Instead, the

entity which is classically called an object provides the ‘situation’ for a familiar experience to

occur with a subject. The object-entity (antecedent to experience) is pregnant with possible

sense-attributes, but these only become actualities through familiarity in the event of experience.

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This familiarity is the discernment of a particular object, and not the reverse. This is often

referred to as “constancy”—the object is familiar because the object has remained constant.

Instead, that which has (apparently) remained constant is the familiarity of an event of

experience into which the object is drawn.

To begin, it must first be established that sense-attributes do not belong to objects.

Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962) asks the question “on what basis do we judge that form or size are

the form and size of the object?” (p. 299). Indeed, the basis of such judgments begins with

empirical data collection. Either the world of objects are conveniently available to human sense,

or the world has been discerned in a uniquely human character. Consider the following: what

might an object comprise if not sense-attributes? How does one learn anything about an object-

in-itself without understanding it by way of experience?

The question how there come to be true shapes or sizes, or objective or real ones,

amounts to asking how there are, for us, determinate shapes. And there are determinate shapes

like ‘a square’ or ‘a diamond shape’, or any actual spatial configuration, because our body has a

point of view upon things, and things as abstract elements of one single world, form a system in

which each moment is immediately expressive of every other. A certain way of directing my

gaze in relation to the object signifies a certain appearance of the object and of neighboring

objects. In all its appearances the object retains invariable characteristics, remains itself

invariable and is an object because all the possible values in relation to size and shape which it

can assume are bound up in advance in the formula of its relation with the context. (p. 301)

Merleau-Ponty argues that the attributes of an object, even when abstracted from the event of

experience, only take their meaning from a particular vantage point. That is, an angle is obtuse

from this perspective—namely, the vantage point of a person with some familiarity of angles and

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from whose vantage point said familiarity is aroused. Obtuseness is not an attribute that belongs

to the angle any more than phantom-limb pain belongs to the phantom. Both emerge from the

sub-objective event of experience. The event of experience is the situation of a familiar object

beckoning a subject. In addition to the phantom limb, Whitehead (1920/2012) also gives the

example of a toothache in order to demonstrate the entity to whom sense-attributes belong:

“Where was your toothache? You went to a dentist and pointed out the tooth to him. He

pronounced it perfectly sound, and cured you by stopping another tooth. Which tooth was the

situation of the toothache?” (p. 75). The angle’s obtuseness, phantom pain, and toothache each

belong to an event of experience, and not the objects in question. Were the latter the case, then

one would be left with a bifurcated event—namely, the sensations on one side and the object-

attributes which are cause of the sensations on the other. Whitehead calls these primary and

secondary qualities of objects.

But the examples which I have given you show that the notions of the situation of

what you see, what you touch, and what you hear are not so sharply separated out

as to defy further questioning. You cannot cling to the idea that we have two sets

of experiences of nature, one of primary qualities which belong to the objects

perceived, and one of secondary qualities which are the products of our mental

excitements. All we know of nature is in the same boat, to sink or swim together.

(p. 75)

In each of the above examples, the sense-attributes discussed have had the character of

remaining constant. The pain of the toothache has persisted; the angle-measure has remained

reliably obtuse through subsequent glances. Constancy is offered as evidence that these

attributes belong to the objects in question. Merleau-Ponty and Whitehead both argue that the

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apparent constancy is a consequence of the experiencing subject and not the objects themselves.

To say that an object is familiar to a subject is to say that it is an object of experience. The

attributes or qualities of an object of experience do not inhere within the object itself, but cohere

around a sub-objective event of experience. Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962) explains how constancy

belongs to neither subject nor object. It is initiated by an entity which beckons a subject in a

manner that is familiar; the familiarity remains amid the rapids of experience.

The qualities of the thing, its colour for example, or its hardness or weight, teach

us more about it than its geometrical properties. The table is, and remains, brown

throughout the varied play of natural or artificial lighting. Now what, to begin

with, is this real colour, and how have we access to it? We shall be tempted to

reply that it is the color which I most often see as belonging to the table… which

means those which occur most frequently. When the distance is too great or when

the light has a colour of its own, as at sunset or under electric lighting, I substitute

for the actual colour a remembered one, which predominates because it is

imprinted within me by numerous experiences. In this case the constancy of

colour is a real constancy. But we have here no more than an artificial

reconstruction of the phenomenon. For, with regard to perception itself, it cannot

be said that the brown of the table presents itself in all kinds of light as the same

brown, the same quality actually given by memory. (p. 304)

From this we learn two things regarding the object of experience. First, the object of experience,

understood by familiar sense-attributes, emerges only through an event of experience. This is

another way of saying that the object is its experiential qualities. Second, the object referred to

in experience is entirely outside of the experience; this object does not take part in experience.

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Experience and the object are of two different orders. The event of experience, which is the

occasion of a familiar object, is an ever changing process. An object is outside of this flux. This

presents an important distinction from the events in which objects of experience are implicated:

“Objects are elements in nature which do not pass. … It is impossible to recognize an event,

because an event is essentially distinct from every other event” (Whitehead, 1920/2012, p. 73).

Objects return as familiar entities—this is to say there are experiences which have the character

of familiarity. Events pass, but objects are “the elements in nature which can ‘be again’” (p. 73).

It is in this second sense that the objective Thing may be understood not as a static entity

relative to time, but as the character of an experience. These are the Things that Applebaum

(1993) takes great care describing. For Applebaum, the innocuous objects that occupy one’s

time and attention are eventually imbued by the spirit of one’s life. “A chipped teapot, invisibly

dispensable most of the time, suddenly becomes an object of inestimable value” (p. ix). Objects

belong to the event of experience, but they persist after the event has passed. They remain as

familiar feelings—Applebaum’s “Things.” Subsequent entities beckon a familiar sub-objective

experience and this is understood as object-constancy. This makes it difficult to discern the

entity to whom familiarity belongs, much less whether familiarity is a subjective feeling or

objective sense-attribute. Object-constancy is the experience of familiarity in the world, and it is

only through familiarity that particular objects emerge.

It has been argued that sense-attributes do not belong to the objects-in-themselves.

Indeed, the object-ness of objects has been drawn into question. Sense-attributes and object-

constancy describe the character of an experience and not the qualities of an entity in-itself. In

what follows, the object-in-itself will be considered. This provides a contrast to the object

discussed above. Above, the object is the character of familiarity to an experiencing subject. It

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is argued that an object-in-itself cannot be any object at all. This is because it resists the

character by which objects are discerned—namely, sense-attributes.

Objects are Attributes of Experience

The present project has maintained the bias of psychological subject-matter. That is,

objects and subjects have been considered insofar as they are of import to the discipline of

psychology. For the present section, psychological objects are objects-for-human-subjects. This

does not mean that all entities in the world exist only for human subjects, but that the

psychological import of objects may only be understood from the vantage point of human

subjects. Furthermore, humans can only speculate the sense-attributes of an object-entity as it

presences to a nonhuman subject-entity. Evidence has been shared above which indicates that

the qualities which are most often attributed to objects are not so easily traced to the objects

themselves. Indeed, the apparent constancy of such objects which defends their independence

has been found to emerge only as an experience of familiarity with an engaged subject.

Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962) summarizes the argument regarding objects thus far:

One cannot, as we have said, conceive any perceived thing without someone to

perceive it. But the fact remains that the thing presents itself to the person who

perceives it as a thing in itself, and thus poses the problem of a genuine in-itself-

for-us. Ordinarily we do not notice this because our perception, in the context of

our everyday concerns, alights on things sufficiently attentively to discover in

them their familiar presence, but not sufficiently so to disclose the nonhuman

element which lies hidden in them. (p. 322)

That is, insofar as it is perceived as an object, an entity initiates an experience of familiarity.

Once again, an object is the event of familiarity. This experience is often attributed to the object:

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it is because of the object that one has an uncanny experience of familiarity. But the object as

object is incapable of presenting as an ambiguity. Indeed, a null objective form would be no

object at all. However, if understood as an object-in-itself, unfamiliarity to a human subject

might be a reasonable possibility for an entity. This, after all, is the thesis behind alien

phenomenology (Bogost, 2012) and unhuman phenomenology (Trigg, 2013). Alien

phenomenology aims at the object-object inter-relationship and unhuman phenomenology aims

at the uncanny experience which initiates a shift in perspective6. Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962)

entertains the possibility of an alien or unhuman object—that is, an object-in-itself:

But the thing holds itself aloof from us and remains self-sufficient. This will

become clear if we suspend our ordinary preoccupations and pay a metaphysical

and disinterested attention to it. It is then hostile and alien, no longer an

interlocutor, but a resolutely silent Other, a Self which evades us no less than does

intimacy with an outside consciousness.

As an alien entity, the object-in-itself is recalcitrant to experience—it is no object of experience.

In principle there can be no psychological essence to the object-in-itself. Thus, there can be no

knowledge of the object-in-itself and for-itself. Understanding the being of such an entity must

be left to speculative inquiry, a topic which will receive earnest attention in Section VI.

Instead, objects of experience may be understood as familiar attributes in human

experience. The life of such objects is not hidden from view or obscured from experience.

Indeed, the object as object amounts to that which initiates a particular experience. This is why

Whitehead (1920/2012) calls an object the ‘situation’ of an event (of experience). Merleau-

6 Incidentally, each of these methods stops at theoretical speculation, failing to provide any instances of practical

import.

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Ponty (1945/1962) explains how the object is that which is given in experience. This is offered

in opposition to the classical position which maintains that only certain attributes are given in

experience and others kept hidden.

The thing and the world, as we have already said, are offered to the perceptual

communication as is a familiar face with an expression which is immediately

understood. But then a face expresses something only through the arrangements

of the colors and lights which make it up, the meaning of the gaze being not

behind the eyes, but in them, and a touch of color more or less is all the painter

needs in order to transform the facial expression of a portrait. (p. 322)

In experience, the object presents to an observing subject as a Gestalt—familiar and

unambiguous. If ambiguity remains, then the entity fails to take perceptual form. Insofar as an

experience is had, then a meaningful object has emerged. Once it emerges as an object, said

object is given. Were it the case that objects were the sum of their sense-attributes, then it could

be maintained that the objects could be perceived in part. Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962) explains

that this is not what occurs in the event of perception.

We can no more construct perception of the thing and of the world from discrete

aspects, than we can make up the binocular vision of an object from two

monocular images. My experiences of the world are integrated into one single

world as the double image merges into the one thing, when my finger stops

pressing upon my eyeball, I do not have one perspective, then another, and

between them a link brought about by the understanding, but each perspective

merges into the other and, in so far as it is still possible to speak of a synthesis, we

are concerned with a ‘transitional synthesis.’ (p. 329)

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Indeed, the object is not disclosed through perception, but is the very bringing about of a

particular or familiar perception. The attributes of the object qua sense-object belong to the

event of experience and not the object in-itself. The object’s sense-attributes emerge out of sub-

objective event—they occupy neither subject nor object but the chiasm in-between.

It has already been demonstrated that the sense-attributes of the object are not located in

the object. The examples of this have included Merleau-Ponty’s table, Whitehead’s phantom

limb, and Whitehead’s toothache. But it is also inaccurate to say that the sense-attributes are

ideal forms that are projected onto entities by an interacting subject. That is, sense-attributes are

not given to an object by a subject; they do not belong to a subject. Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962)

explains:

A thing is, therefore, not actually given in perception, it is internally taken up by

us, reconstituted and experienced by us in so far as it is bound up with a world,

the basic structures of which we carry with us, and of which it is merely one of

many possible concrete forms. (p. 326)

Objects and Things are what bind subjects to the world. The perception of an object is not the

acquisition of empirical knowledge in the sense of knower-known; the perception of an object is

a manner of bodily comportment and being in the world. This is the thesis of Applebaum’s

(1993) work where experience of Things are what separate humans from Angels—the latter can

make no such investment. Merleau-Ponty (1948/2004) addresses the personal meaningfulness of

the Things which make up one’s world of experience:

Our relationship with things is not a distant one: each speaks to our body and to

the way we live. They are clothed in human characteristics (whether docile, soft,

hostile or resistant) and conversely they dwell within us as emblems of forms of

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life we either love or hate. Humanity is invested in the things of the world and

these things are invested in it. (p. 49)

The emergence of a sense-object (or thing)—that is, an object of experience—marks a

transformation of an objective-entity. It is through the sub-objective event of experience that an

antecedent event (Whitehead, 1933/1967; see chapter’s introduction) becomes a thing or an

object. This transformation has been referred to as familiarity. Familiarity is the world

beckoning a subject for the reconstitution of a phenomenon. Object-ness is the familiarization of

objective entities; it also marks a familiar way for a subject to occupy a world. An object calls a

subject into being—it is a bringing forward just as much as it is itself brought forward.

We now discover the core of reality: a thing is a thing because, whatever it

imparts to us, is imparted through the very organization of its sensible aspects.

…The thing is an entity of a kind such that the complete definition of one of its

attributes demands that of the subject in its entirety: an entity, consequently, the

significance of which is indistinguishable from its total appearance. (Merleau-

Ponty, 1945/1962, p. 323)

van den Berg (1972) describes the world as experienced by his psychopathological patient. The

patient experiences the buildings on a city-street in a manner that contradicts their presupposed

objective qualities. For example, high-rise buildings form a right-angle with the ground, and

maintain this perpendicularity as they stretch upward. van den Berg’s patient, however,

experienced these buildings as looming over his head—ready to fall on top of him.

The objects of his world were frightening and ominous, and when he tried to

establish that the house, the street, the square and the fields would reasonably

have retained their former shape and nature, and that, therefore, his perceptions

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must have provided him with a falsification of reality, this correction, in which he

wanted to believe, if only for a moment, seemed unreal and artificial to him. It

was more unreal than the direct, incorrect observation which was so frightening

that it drove him back to his room. What he perceived was a reality, just as he

described it. (p. 10)

It was the presupposed sense-attributes of familiar entities that seemed unreal and artificial. The

objects were those that presented in his experience of the world; objects with which he had some

relation. Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962) may be found providing commentary on the description of

van den Berg’s patient. “The real is a closely woven fabric. It does not await our judgment

before incorporating the most surprising phenomena, or before rejecting the most plausible

figments of our imagination” (p. xi).

It has been argued that objects only come into being through the event of experience.

The reasoning for this is twofold. First, the very attributes with which objects are characterized

are the attributes of the experience of an object from a particular vantage point. As humans, we

may only understand an object’s human sense-attributes. Second, object-ness has been found to

exist only as a particular manner of relating with another event—namely, an event’s object-ness

is sufficient to draw a subject into an experiential relationship. Like the subject in the previous

section, there can be no object outside of the sub-objective event of experience. The following

section will explore the sub-objective event. If this section and the last have explored the object

and subject, then the following one will focus on the hyphen that is their interconnection.

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Section III: The Sub-objective Event

I intend to demonstrate that, in the case of contemporary theoretical physics,

scientific progress critically depends on shifting from the stance of Cartesian

philosophy to a phenomenological posture that surpasses the subject-object split.

(Rosen, 2008, p. xiii)

It has been argued thus far that subject and object are contingent on the event of

experience. This is to say that subject-ness emerges in a particular relation to an object-entity,

and object-ness emerges in a particular relation to a subject-entity. This has been called the sub-

objective event of experience. Section I focused on the subject while Section II focused on the

object. The present section looks more closely at their interrelationship. This will begin with a

comparison to phenomenological intentionality. This will be followed by several helpful figures

for modeling this relationship. The continued theme will be that of Whitehead’s (1929/1978)

processual characterization of the event of experience—where two disjunct events are unified.

This has been compared to Dillon’s (1988/1998) “identity-within-difference” and Rosen’s (2008)

“unity in diversity.” In conclusion, alternative proposals for causality that more appropriately fit

the subject-object interrelationship are explored.

Intentionality in the Sub-objective Event

Phenomenology has provided the philosophical method for understanding the subject-

object event. Following Kant, Brentano (1874) argues that there is no such thing as an object

that exists alone by itself. To this Brentano adds the subject—there is no consciousness that

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exists alone by itself either; consciousness is always consciousness of something. This is

intentionality. Thus, subject and object find mutual noesis-noema emergence during an

intentional or noetic act. At the close of the 19th century, there was a strong philosophical case

for the ontological inseparability of subject and object, and there was also an academic discipline

tasked with this union (namely, psychology).

The Phenomenological and early Psychological notion of nature’s unity (subject-object)

ran counter to the traditional mechanical-objectivist realism which characterized modern

scientific thought from the 17th century. Built on Newtonian and Galilean ideas about physics

and Cartesian notions of ontological duality, modern science argues for a universe of discrete

physical structures which operate and interact based on efficient causal and mechanical laws.

Here it is assumed that objects exist alone by themselves and their mechanical interactions with

other objects can be anticipated in advance. This position has dominated the natural sciences,

and even began to inform the projects of social sciences. William James (1890/2007,

1899/1962) has observed this tendency in psychology from an early date. While mechanical-

objectivist realism characterized the mainstream practice of science into the 20th century, a

handful of dissidents emerged. Whitehead (1938/1958) has argued that the focus of mechanized

science emphasized “lifeless” nature while ignoring “living” nature. Heidegger (1927/1962) has

argued that the question of being has been systematically eliminated from ontology as a result;

Husserl (1936/1970) and Goldstein (1934) have argued that the mechanization of nature

indicates a crisis. In addition to these instances of growing unrest, the very model of modern

Newtonian physics that informed the mechanistic ontology began to fall apart as an absolute

explanatory model—something that Whitehead (1920/2012; 1929/1978) has observed in his

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writing. The mechanical model of nature is found breaking down at the level of physical

particles, organic particles, and psychical particles.

Phenomenology, benefitting from the evidence gathered by quantum physicists, has been

able to restore validity to the subject in scientific inquiry. This marks a dramatic change in

metaphysics given the complete rejection of the role of the subject in mechanical-objectivistic

realism. With quantum physics, the observer is found playing a role in the once third-personal

data collection (Stapp, 2011); with chemistry, physics, and various other sciences, the subject is

found playing an integral role in determining the ontological validity of subject matter (Polanyi,

1958). The increasing role played by the subject has been well-explored by phenomenology and

various other qualitative methodologies employed by social and educational scientists. This, I

have argued, aptly satisfies Wundt’s (1897) “experiencing subject” criterion for psychology.

The “object of experience” it seems, remains at the level of an inert, discrete, and mechanical bit

of matter. It has been argued throughout the duration of Chapter One that objects also play a

dynamic role in the sub-object experiential event. In summary, Wundt’s subject and object have

been explored insofar as they mutually contribute to a single experiential event; there are not two

discrete parts of an experiential event, but two perspectives from which an event might be

understood.

Before getting into the research programs that center on a conciliated conception of

nature, a final link between theory and method must be made—namely, how is one to understand

the relationship between subject and object? For example, what does the hyphen in “sub-

objective” indicate? I argue that the division of nature which has had a long history in Western

thought—from Plato onwards (See Literature Review)—has powerfully shaped our experience

of it as such. In this particular socio-historical epoch, nature is experienced as ontologically

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divided; the solution will not be found in a pre-bifurcated conception of Nature. What is

presently called for is a way of understanding Merleau-Ponty’s (1964/1968) observation of the

anomalous instances of nature’s reversibility. Incidentally, the unity between opposites that is

suggested here is recalcitrant to being modeled in Euclidean or non-Euclidean space (Rosen,

2008). Thus, instead of its apt demonstration through models, nature’s unity will be indicated

through three examples where the models break down in insightful ways. These breakdowns

exemplify Merleau-Ponty’s (1964/1968) “dehiscence/divergence/écart” (Dillon, 1988/1998, pp.

153-176). The first model will be a Gestalt image which features a single arrangement of

components which presents as two mutually exclusive three-dimensional figures. The second

will be the Möbius Strip which defies the principles of two-dimensional physical space. The

third will be the Klein bottle which defies the principles of three-dimensional physical space.

From Subject and Object to Sub-object: Necker Cubes, Möbius Strips, and Klein Bottles

The difficulty of conceiving the interconnectivity of subject and object has been explored

through two instances in the Literature Review. In the first instance, the division of nature has a

long history in Western metaphysics; Merleau-Ponty (1956-57/2003) and Whitehead

(1933/1967) both acknowledge that the conciliation of nature does not call for a “return” to pre-

Platonic metaphysics. Indeed, unity between subject and object must first acknowledge their

apparent separation. In the second instance, 20th century alternatives to 19

th century

metaphysical models have “carried over” certain assumptions from modern mechanical-objective

realism. These 20th

century responses have introduced and defended the ontological validity of

the subject, but the theme of object-constancy has remained. This time it has been extended to

the subject. As a result, the apparent dissimilarity of successive observations of a particular

object are no longer attributed to “subject error” but may be attributed to the fact that there is no

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fixed and unchanging—that is, “objective”—object. The “carry over” is that the subject remains

fixed and unchanging amid transforming objects.

Leclerc (1977) describes this classical carry-over, but Rosen (2008) will be consulted for

its implications for the role of the subject. The 20th century marked an elevation in the

ontological validity of the subject of scientific inquiry. This occurred to the detriment of the role

of the object. Rather than serving the role of jury for ontological validation, objects have been

found changing—recall Whitehead’s (1920/2012) headline which read “Space Caught Bending”

(p. 85). Rosen has observed that there remains some of this “fixed and unchanging” residue on

the increasing role played by the subject. I have termed this “subject-constancy.”

Carry-over and subject-constancy. The early 20th

century marked a shift in object-

constancy. The assumption that objects remain fixed and unchanging was no longer tenable

across the sciences (See Literature Review). Now it is understood that objects change, but it is

the subject which seems to remain unaltered from one moment to the next. It is now the subject

who may be understood by the constancy hypothesis. “The maintenance of classical identity is

essentially predicated on separating subject and object in such a way that, whereas objects

change concretely, the subject and the space in which it operates remain abstractly the same” (p.

163). Fixity has left the object to be taken up by the subject; a single subject tracks the changes

that occur in the dynamic object. To repeat, the notion of a fixed and unchanging object—that is,

“object constancy”—has been dismissed in favor of a dynamic and changing object. The

constancy has left the object and has now been extended to the subject. Rosen argues that this

too presents a problem for phenomenological science:

Yet if the subject, at bottom, is in fact perfectly indivisible thus transcendent of

space, and if its objects are completely divisible thus immanent to space, could

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there be any genuine interaction between subject and object? This is of course but

another way of stating the old mind-body problem that was never quite put to rest

in the classical tradition. If mind and body are ontologically divided, how is it

possible for them to interact? (pp. 6-7)

Rosen (2008) describes how the constancy of the subject may be and has well been drawn into

question, and he notes how unsettling this is. He explains this through the Michelson-Morley

experiment which was quoted in the Literature Review, above. Here he continues, explaining

how this implicates the dynamism of the subject:

[T]he presupposition is that I do not change, that the “invisible I” behind these

eyes remains in-di-visible, retains its individuality. Because a solitary individual

lies behind the multiplicity of concretely shifting perspectives, said perspectives

are readily interchangeable, with one being continuously transformable into

another in a predictable fashion. Confirmation of these predictions serves to

confirm the cogito’s sense of himself. When, upon altering my perspective, I see

how the appearance of an object I have been viewing changes as expected, I am

indeed reassured that I have not changed. What Michelson and Morley saw was

not reassuring. (p. 164)

As anticipated by the intentionality of phenomenology, noesis and noema together

comprise the noetic union and each is transformed. In terms of Wundt’s (1897) psychological

program, it is the event of experience which comprises experiencing subject and object of

experience. These cannot be teased apart in the reconstruction of the psychological event of

experience. This would suppose that there’s some particular object of a particular experience.

While recognizing the role of object in an event of experience certainly gets past the mechanical-

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objective realism of the 19th century, it still carries over the idea that events may be reduced to

discrete components. When Michelson and Morley observed light, it drew the subject-over-

object conception of empirical observation into question. Their observations can only be

understood as precipitating from an event of experience that was seeing light. Rosen (2008)

quotes Sachs (1999):

“What is ‘it’ that propagates from an emitter of light, such as the sun, to an

absorber of light, such as one’s eye? Is ‘it’ truly a thing on its own, or is it a

manifestation of the coupling of an emitter to an absorber?” (p. 14) Sachs’s

rhetorical question suggests that the phenomenon of light—instead of lending

itself to being treated as a changeable object open to the scrutiny of a changeless

subject that stands apart from it—may be better understood as entailing the

inseparable blending of subject and object, of changelessness and change. (in

Rosen, 2008, p. 164)

Sachs’s quote captures Whitehead’s (1920/2012) concern about the division of subject and object

in perception. Rosen argues that this is better understood when these two poles of an event of

perception have been fused or blended together. He concludes of the Michelson and Morley

experiment: “Why did light ‘look’ the same to them no matter what perspective upon it they

assumed? I propose it was because, in confronting the phenomenon of light, they were not

encountering an object to be seen, but that by which they saw” (p. 164). Subject and object do

not interact because of the capacity of the unchanging object; they do not interact because of the

capacity of the unchanging subject; instead an event marks the singular interconnection which

constitutes subject and object and without which there is neither. Explicating nature’s singularity

despite apparent duality—or Rosen’s (2008) Unity in Diversity—is the task of this section.

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The significance of Merleau-Ponty’s reversibility thesis: Dehiscence, divergence,

écart. Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962, 1964/1968, 1956-57/2003) has devoted much attention to the

problematic dualities with which nature has long been characterized. He explains that problem

as follows:

When I find again the actual world such as it is, under my hands, under my eyes,

up against my body, I find much more than an object a Being of which my vision

is a part, a visibility older than my operations or my acts. (1964/1968, p. 123)

This is consonant with Whitehead’s observation of a problematic bifurcation between object of

perception and percept (cause of awareness and awareness). Merleau-Ponty acknowledges that it

is inadequate to understand that there is an object which is cause of a particular perception.

However, this does not mean that object and subject are the same or that they share an identity.

He continues,

But this does not mean that there was a fusion or coinciding of me with it: on the

contrary, this occurs because a sort of dehiscence opens my body in two, and

because between my body looked at and my body looking, my body touched and

my body touching, there is overlapping or encroachment, so that we must say that

the things pass into us as well as we into the things. (p. 123)

Merleau-Ponty explains how the act of perception is not the unlikely combination of two

incommunicable levels—one object and one percept; this would be the assertion of a bifurcation

in perception. However, the opposite is also false; it is not the case that the object and the

percept are the same. Merleau-Ponty maintains that the act of perception is only possible due to

the reversibility of flesh—a flesh of which object and subject comprise. But this does not mean

that subject and object share an identity. Even though subjects and objects participate as flesh in

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the same event of experience, there is a gap. Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) has called this gap a

separation or écart. “This separation (écart) which, in first approximation, forms meaning, is not

a no I affect myself with[;] it is a natural negativity, a first institution, always already there” (p.

216). Dillon (1988/1998) explains this natural negativity through the example of perception:

This fission or non-coincidence is essential to perception: to perceive the thing, in

this case my own hand, there must be a distancing of it. Perceiving something is

different from being that thing (that is, coinciding with it): even in the case of

touching my own body there is a difference/distance/alienation within the

identity/unity. (Dillon, 1988/1998, p. 159)

Even within his own body, Dillon observes the gap between sensing and sensed. Merleau-Ponty

has shared above (Section I) how the left hand is always on the verge of touching right-hand-

touching things, but that the relationship switches just before coincidence. And again, even

within a single body the event of right-hand-sensing-left is not the same as left-hand-sensing-

right. More so with the perception of an inanimate object:

For me to touch the table, I must be touched by the table. Yet, there is also

difference: touching the table and being touched by it is not the same as touching

my right hand with my left and feeling with my right hand the pressure of my left.

Reversibility obtains in both cases, but I cannot experience the table touching me

in the same way the hand touched can take up the role of touching. The plain fact

of the matter is that the table is neither part of my body nor sentient in the way my

body is. There is an asymmetry in the reversibility thesis.... (Dillon p. 159)

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Or with an Other (person):

[T]he right hand touching left hand model has to be altered here as it was in the

case of hand touching table. Shaking hands with the Other is not the same as

shaking hands with oneself. There is reversibility in both cases, but his experience

of my right hand as object is inaccessible to me in a way that my left hand’s

experience of my right hand is not. There is a limit to the ‘I can.’ There is a

dehiscence, fission, écart. There is a bridge and an intertwining, but there is not

an identity. (p. 166)

In each of these cases, Merleau-Ponty’s reversibility thesis rejects the incommunicability

of subject and object—that is, subject and object are not “radically disjunct” (Dillon, 1988/1998).

However, he does this without supposing an identity between subject and object—that is, that the

subject is the same as the object and the object, subject. While these roles are reversible, their

unity may only be understood by way of a gap—that is, Merleau-Ponty’s dehiscence, fission,

écart. Dillon calls this “the identity-within-difference structure of reversibility” (p. 166).

Three examples will be used that demonstrate the necessity of Merleau-Ponty’s

dehiscence, divergence, fission, écart and Dillon’s “identity-within-difference” in conciliating

subject and objects into sub-object. The first will be a popular Gestalt image: the Necker Cube.

This is appropriate because Merleau-Ponty has maintained his (1945/1962) theme of perceptual

Gestalten in his later concept of flesh (1964/1968; Dillon 1988/1998). Though the image is a

single two-dimensional configuration of constituent parts, the Necker Cube presents as two

mutually exclusive three-dimensional figures. These figures are not radically disjunct—you

could not remove one and hope to leave the other unchanged; and they are also not an identity—

that is, constituent parts play un-identical roles in each figure. The second two examples have

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been supplied by Rosen (2008), and he has used them to demonstrate nature’s “unity in

diversity”—a concept similar to Dillon’s (1988/1998) “identity-within-difference.” Rosen

describes the following two geometrically anomalous figures: the two-dimensional Möbius Strip

and the three-dimensional Klein Bottle. The Möbius Strip is a single-edged figure which passes

through itself without rupture or coincidence—a feat that is geometrically impossible when

restricted to two dimensions. The Klein Bottle is a single-surfaced figure which passes through

itself without rupture or coincidence—a feat that is geometrically impossible in three-

dimensions. Note how in each example one finds the themes of non-coincidence or non-identity,

as well as non-disjunct or non-ruptured.

Describing the sub-object of psychology faces a twofold difficulty: first, the history of

division between subjects and objects has much precedent in the last twenty centuries of Western

thought and thus cannot be merely whisked away. Second and corollary to the first, carry-over

of object-constancy to the subject plagues the ability to consider the mutual interrelationship

between object and subject. Taken together, these two difficulties of conceiving the sub-object

unity will mark the task of the present section. The conclusion will not be a logically-deductive

proof or an apt model demonstrating nature’s sub-objective unity. Indeed, proofs and models

exist within the long history of Western metaphysical thought which has maintained nature’s

division. Instead, examples will be used that resist such modeling—two dimensional shapes

which require three-dimensional representation; one-dimensional shapes which require two-

dimensional representation; etc. This will begin with the example of The Necker Cube, and how

two (or more) Gestalten can emerge from a single image.

Necker Cube. The Necker Cube (Figure 1) provides a useful model for understanding

the interconnectivity between subject and object in constituting the sub-object in two ways. In

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the first way, the image demonstrates multiple integrated structural capacities from a single

collection of components—that is, 12 lines are capable of unifying into mutually exclusive three-

dimensional figures. In the words of Whitehead (1933/1967), these twelve events are the

“situation” for a Cube figure. However, the situation requires a situatedness (i.e., a perspective)

before the Cube event can unfold. Corollary to the first, in the second way a two-dimensional

figure can be and often is experienced in three-dimensions (this allows for the production of two

mutually exclusive figures). Moreover, it is only in three-dimensions that the cube-figure

appears. This means that the Necker Cube proper is an intentional object and not an object-in-

itself. The flatness out of which a gestalt emerges allows for the production of an impossible

three-dimensional figure (Figure 2).

Figure 1: Necker Cube

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The Necker Cube pictured above (Figure 1) may first be characterized as an exemplar of

a Gestalt figure-ground image. These are images that may present as multiple, often

contradictory figures to a perceiving subject. If perceived as a three-dimensional figure, the

Necker Cube may present as two different cubes. In one instance, the lower-left point may be

perceived as closer to the observer than the top-right point; in another instance, this relationship

may be reversed. This transformation, it seems, happens suddenly and it seems to happen in the

object itself. There is no indication that a change is incipient, but a three-dimensional cube

presents. This might be the cube where the bottom-left point presents closest to the observer.

Once again, another Gestalt shift might occur which sets this point back in space relative to the

other points of the figure. The figure does not disappear and then reappear in another form. The

figure also does not slowly shift—first this point and then another. The shift is complete and

occurs without any volitional process of the observing subject. The role of each constituent part

alters radically in this complete gestalt shift. Once again, no single constituent of the cube-event

can be taken from the Necker Cube image, just as none of these constituents may be pinned

down as playing a single and discrete role. Instead it is more accurate to say that these

constituents are always engaged in many mutually exclusive roles, and do so without

differentiation.

What might be said of the lower-left point of the cube—is it closer to or farther from the

observer than the top-right point? Can it be said that this point is both closer to and farther from

the observer than the top-right point? Or must it instead be maintained that in some cases closer

and in other cases farther. Each of these emergent figures calls the observer into a different

embodied relationship. Even in the simple consideration of a single point on a two-dimensional

plane, multiple possibilities arise. In each of these possibilities, the role and identity of the point

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in relationship to the figure and to the observer has changed. The intuition is that it is the object

that has changed; but it could also be understood that the subject has changed, since the relation

to her environment has undergone a transformation. But what might be said about the role and

identity of the observer or subject? As discussed, it is assumed that the figure is the only entity

capable of undergoing perspectival change. This is what Rosen (2008) terms the “object-in-

space-before-subject.” However, there would be no change in the Necker Cube image without a

perceiving subject. As an object, the Necker Cube is a two-dimensional configuration of 12

lines; it only appears as mutually exclusive three-dimensional figures to a perceiving subject.

Thus the subject is found playing an integral role to the shifts that occur between figures.

Instead of using the Necker Cube as an example of the capacity for an “objective” image

to change in front of an unchanging subject, consider the role played by the subject. Perceiving

subject and Necker Cube are united in the event of experience, but their union is marked by

Merleau-Ponty’s “dehiscence/divergence/écart.” The Necker Cube as an antecedent entity is a

flat collection of twelve lines until a three-dimensional Gestalt emerges to a perceiving subject.

The Necker Cube is “pregnant” with the forms of mutually exclusive three-dimensional figures,

but the latter emerge to a perceiving subject. The emergent cube-object is taken to be

independent of the perceiving subject, but this disjunction between subject and object is

inaccurate. Indeed, Wertheimer (1938) has explained that the probability of the emergence of

particular Gestalt figures can be adjusted based on adjustments to the arrangement of

constituents. For the Necker Cube, the lines can be given depth, shading, and superposition to

strengthen a particular Gestalt. In this manner, the Necker Cube can be adjusted to present as a

particular three-dimensional figure. Once more, it is as though there is a particular object that

presents to a subject, and one is left with “object-in-space-before-subject.” Rosen (2008)

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proposes the following Escher-type Necker Cube (Figure 2) to implicate the role of the

perceiving subject.

By giving the cube edges, shading, and superposition, Rosen emphasizes a particular

three-dimensional figure that follows from the two-dimensional Necker Cube image. Moreover,

he has done so in a way that resists definite Gestalt coherence. While this particular

configuration can be traced out in the Necker Cube, as a three-dimensional figure it resists

classical physical space-time. It is as though the figure has been caught mid-Gestalt shift. Half

of the figure demands that the top-right corner is nearest and the other half demands the bottom-

left corner is nearest. Despite its occupation of a fixed and finite space, there is no resolution to

the configuration of Figure 2—no definite figure emerges.

Figure 2: Rosen’s Adapted Necker Cube

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In the Necker Cube in Figure 1, the possible three-dimensional figures radically shift

from one form to another. This has been compared to Merleau-Ponty’s (1964/1968)

dehiscence/divergence/écart. Notice how in that example it is the figure-object that does the

changing while the unchanging subject is available to note the changes. This still fits into what

Rosen (2008) has called “object-in-space-before-subject.” What we’re aiming for is the sub-

object. Figure 2 presents as a Necker Cube that is stuck in a mid-three-dimensional transition.

As such, the figure continues to change and resist change. There is no resolution in three-

dimensional space. The subject is incapable of commanding the objective unity of the figure.

The definite positions in space that Figure 2 occupies can only be traced back to the subject, and

this only occurs by neglecting particular details of the figure (e.g., by ignoring one of the central

horizontal edges).

Despite the role that Gestalt Perception Theory opens up for the subject by

acknowledging the breakdown of mechanical-objective realism, there is still the carried-over

assumption of ontological fixity—this time extended to the subject. Subjectivity is just as

contingent as the object in phenomenology. Rosen argues that the apparent fixity of the subject

can be explained by the same structural principles that mark the apparent fixity of the object—

principles which Gestalt Psychology (e.g. Wertheimer, 1938; Köhler, 1947/1957) has

demonstrated are not the property of the objects.

It should be clear that achieving object constancy—whether we are speaking of

objects perceived by the child or objects studied mathematically by the

physicist—is dialectically coupled with gaining subject constancy. On the one

hand, because one’s imagined body serves as the frame of reference from which

all observations are made, an object seen to change with changes in viewpoint or

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perspective can be taken as the same object only insofar as the observer’s body is

implicitly sense as remaining the same. But the subject could not attain coherence

and internal stability in the first place if the original chaos of nature did not

already lend itself to being ordered. (Rosen, p. 3)

The Necker Cube visual illusion—a two dimensional image which presents as two

mutually exclusive three-dimensional figures—has demonstrated the sub-object in two ways.

When taken as a Gestalt image, two completely integrated three-dimensional wholes can emerge.

These two three-dimensional wholes are composed of the same constituent parts. As a result,

one cannot be removed while leaving the other unaltered; indeed, erase the constituents of one

and the other will be erased as well. By analogy, subject and object may be understood to

participate in the same sub-object event of experience. Said event can be explicated as an

objective event or as a subjective event, and these descriptions might be mutually exclusive.

However, eliminate either aspect and the other will be eliminated as well. Also, there seems to

be an apparent gap between one three-dimensional image and the other. The shift between these

two has been tied to Merleau-Ponty’s dehiscence/divergence/écart. The experience is that the

image definitely presents as one way, then shifts so as to definitely present another way. That a

sub-objective event of experience presents as either a subjective event or an objective event

seems to relate to the tendency for visual percepts to present as integrated wholes or Gestalten.

However, while the Necker Cube typically presents as coherent figures in three-dimensional

geometrical space, the Cube itself may be configured so as to resist geometrical space. This was

illustrated in Figure 2, above. This image seems to be caught in the middle of a Gestalt shift

between two coherent three-dimensional figures. That such a figure resists coherent integration

suggests that the need for figures to follow particular patterns of configuration—namely, it must

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be coherent in Euclidean space and it must present as a definite shape (and not two opposing

ones). This need is demonstrated in the perceiving subject by whom ambiguous configurations

present as definite figures.

The next example is that of the Möbius Strip—a two-dimensional figure which resists

two-dimensional space. That is, it is an impossible two-dimensional figure. Like the adjusted

Necker Cube in Figure 2 in three-dimensional space, the Möbius Strip resists emergence as an

integrated whole though in two-dimensional space. Furthermore, the Möbius Strip is a figure

that passes through itself without convergence or rupture—a metaphor of “identity-within-

difference” or “unity in diversity.”

Möbius Strip. The Möbius Strip is a theoretical two-dimensional figure that is

impossible to diagram. All of its properties are specific to two-dimensional figures, but it cannot

be diagrammed in two-dimensional space. Instead, one must extend beyond the two available

dimensions in order to model it. A three-dimensional depiction gives the illusion that the

Möbius Strip has been accurately modeled. However, as a three-dimensional image its

properties have changed substantially.

Figure 3 (b) presents a three-dimensional model of a Möbius Strip (Rosen, 2008, p. 90).

It is pictured alongside a three-dimensional cylinder for comparison. I will first provide a

description of the three-dimensional model of the Möbius Strip in relation to the three-

dimensional cylinder, and then follow up with a description of the actual two-dimensional

Möbius Strip. Notice how the cylinder has two edges and the Möbius Strip has one continuous

edge; the cylinder has an inside face and an outside face; the Möbius Strip has a single face

which spans inside and outside; and finally, in the Möbius Strip there is a point at which the

faces converge and at which the edge passes through itself. In terms of the present discussion,

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Figure 3: Cylinder and Möbius Strip.

the three-dimensional depiction of the Möbius Strip provides an insightful analogy for the sub-

object: the inside and outside co-exist as a single plane, and the shift from subject to object may

be found converging on a single point—a “dehiscence” or “écart”—a non-identity that is also

not a complete disjuncture between the two. Viewed from this vantage point, the three-

dimensional model of the Möbius Strip resembles the sub-object in the same way as the mutually

exclusive three-dimensional figures that emerge from the two-dimensional Necker Cube. For

example, eliminate the outside of Figure 3 (b) and you necessarily eliminate the inside too.

Finally, were one to bisect Figure 3 (a) lengthwise, the result would be two symmetrical rings.

Were one to bisect Figure 3 (b), the result would still be a one-edged, one-sided Möbius Strip but

with an additional half-twist. The same result would follow were one to begin separating the

inside from the outside from Figure 3 (b)—it would remain as a connected single, continuous

figure.

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The three-dimensional model of the two-dimensional Möbius Strip certainly defies

expectations of a three-dimensional figure, but consider its two-dimensional properties. As a

single edge in two-dimensional space, the Möbius Strip is a single line which crosses through

itself. This can be modeled in three dimensional space because there is width at the point of the

half-twist; this is the point in Figure 3 (b) where inner and outer faces converge. If the figure is

rotated in three-dimensional space, one finds that there is some depth to this point such that the

edge does not have to cut through itself—instead it passes around. In two-dimensional space, the

Möbius Strip would look like an infinity sign or lemniscate ∞. It is impossible to draw a

lemniscate in two-dimensional space without having it pass through itself, but this is what would

have to be done in order to correctly model the Möbius Strip. That is, in traditional two-

dimensional geometrical space, the Möbius Strip is a lemniscate with a hole cut through it at the

point of its self-intersection; in theoretical space, the Möbius Strip is a two-dimensional figure

that extends into three-dimensional space without taking on the property of depth.

Unfortunately, the ease with which the Möbius Strip may be rendered in three-dimensional space

makes it easy to suggest that it is a three-dimensional object with curious properties. Thus it fails

at truly demonstrating the difficulty of modeling the sub-object.

By increasing the topological sophistication of the Möbius Strip by a single order, one

finds a Klein Bottle. Like the Möbius Strip in two-dimensions, a Klein Bottle is a three-

dimensional figure that cannot be modeled. Also like the Möbius Strip, it seems another

dimension must be introduced in order to conceptualize the Klein Bottle.

Klein Bottle. The Klein Bottle is theoretical three-dimensional figure that can only be

inaccurately modeled in three-dimensional geometrical space. Like the Möbius Strip which

comprises a single edge that passes through itself without rupture, the Klein Bottle is a single

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plane which passes through itself without rupture. Thus the Klein bottle is a completely open

system and a completely closed system simultaneously. Since this is physically impossible, it

can only be rendered as an open or closed system with a rupture to the integrity of the single

plane. Rosen (2008) explains:

An ordinary bottle conforms to conventional intuition regarding an inside and

outside. … Although conventional containers are thus open or closed, let us try to

imagine a vessel that is both. I am not merely referring to a container that is

partially closed (Such as a bottle without its cap), but to a vessel that is

completely closed and completely open at the same time. The liquid contents of

such a strange vessel would be well sealed within it, and yet, paradoxically, they

would freely spill out! The Klein bottle is a container of this sort. Its paradoxical

structure flagrantly defies the classical intuition of containment that compels us to

think in either/or terms (closed or open, inside or outside, etc.). (pp. 70-71)

Consider the Cylinder in Figure 3 (a). Were one to extend the length of the cylinder and

join the top in to the bottom end, it would create a torus. Were one to do the same with a Möbius

Strip, it would create a Klein Bottle. However, since Figure 3 (b) is an inaccurate model of a

Möbius Strip, this would result only in a closed system which is an inaccurate portrayal of the

Klein Bottle. Rosen provides the following image to demonstrate the continuity of the Klein

Bottle; it is compared with the torus (Figure 4; Rosen, 2008, p. 74).

The top series of Figure 4 demonstrates the closed system of a torus. Here the two ends

of an open cylinder system come together to close the system; nothing may get in or out. In the

bottom series of Figure 4, the two ends of the open cylinder system meet one another in an

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Figure 4: Torus and Klein Bottle

inverted fashion which creates a Klein Bottle. If it is understood that the cylinder at the left of

each series has an interior and an exterior, the end of the top series closes off the interior such

that only the exterior is accessible. In the bottom series, the inverted connection between the top

part of the cylinder and the bottom part of the cylinder represents not a closure of the system (as

in the torus), but an opening of the interior onto the exterior. Here the top-end of the cylinder

meets the bottom end from the inside. This point of connection represents a continuity of a

single system which allows the interior of the cylinder to continue onto its own exterior. The

result is two interconnected Möbius Strips. Like the Möbius Strip, one should in theory be able

to trace a single plane of the Klein Bottle from inside to outside and back again without

convergence or rupturing. Rosen explains the impossibility of modeling this:

But in three-dimensional space, no structure can penetrate itself without cutting a

hole in its surface, an act that would render the model topologically imperfect

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(simply discontinuous). So the construction of a Klein Bottle cannot effectively be

carried out when one is limited to three dimensions. (pp. 73-74)

Given the ease with which the two-dimensional Möbius Strip may be constructed by

sneaking in a third-dimension, it is reasonable to assume that the Klein Bottle might be similarly

constructed by sneaking in a fourth. However, just like the three dimensional model of the

Möbius Strip, a four-dimensional model of the Klein Bottle would necessarily overlook its

important properties. Rosen explains that this tendency is carry-over from classical “object-in-

space-before-subject” intuition, which he refers to as the “classical trichotomy” (the three being

subject, space, and object).

It is in adhering to this classical trichotomy that the Klein bottle is conventionally

deemed a topological object embedded in “four-dimensional space.” But the

actual nature of the Klein bottle suggests otherwise. The concrete necessity of its

hole indicates that, in reality, this bottle is not a mere object, not simply enclosed

in a continuum as can be assumed of ordinary objects, and not opened to the view

of a subject that itself is detached, unviewed (uncontained). Instead of being

contained in space, the Klein bottle may be said to contain itself, thereby

superseding the dichotomy of container and contained. Instead of being reflected

upon by a subject that itself remains out of reach, the self-containing Kleinian

object may be said to flow back into the subject there by disclosing—not a

detached cogito, but the dimension of depth constituting the dialectical lifeworld.

(p. 78)

In Rosen’s description the Klein Bottle, when limited to three-dimensions, aptly demonstrates

the sub-object. The Klein Bottle does not suppose an identity between inside and outside: while

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the inside flows continuously into the outside, there is a dehiscence, divergence, or écart where

inside becomes outside. This gap does not imply a radical disjuncture between inside and

outside: even if one were to cut a hole in the Klein Bottle at the point of apparent convergence,

and trace this rent all the way through the figure, the result would be a single continuous system

but now with two points of apparent convergence.

In summary, the sub-object of a conciliated psychology has been proposed. The need for

an alternative conceptualization of the relationship between subject and object in psychology has

been seen earlier with Whitehead (1920/2012), and it has been indicated here with Merleau-

Ponty (1964/1968; Dillon, 1988/1998) and Rosen (2008). Whitehead observed that psychology

had assumed a bifurcation in the act of perception—namely, between the object (or cause) of

perception and the percept. As such, the object of perception and the perceiving subject are

radically disjunct. The present section has followed Merleau-Ponty’s reversibility thesis in

reconceiving the relationship between subject and object. However, this has been done without

reversing the disjuncture—that is, the new proposal is not that subject and object share an

identity. While subject and object share in the same flesh, their reversibility is asymmetrical.

For example, Dillon has explained how an Other’s “experience of my right hand as object is

inaccessible to me in a way that my left hand’s experience of my right hand is not” (p. 166).

Subject and object come together as sub-object in a manner that does not reduce either to

a single identity; this is better understood as an “identity-within-difference”, “unity in diversity,”

or the reversibility of flesh. Three examples have been used to demonstrate this. The Necker

Cube in Figure 1 demonstrated this through the comparison of two mutually exclusive three-

dimensional figures with which the two-dimensional configuration is pregnant. Furthermore, the

three-dimensional forms with which the two-dimensional configuration is pregnant only emerge

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for a subject—thus the subject is found playing an integral, though non-volitional role. Here

subject and object are found co-participating in a three-dimensional figure which is reducible to

neither perceiving subject nor two-dimensional figural-object. In Figure 2, Rosen (2008)

provides an adjusted Escher-type Necker Cube. This three-dimensional image resists any single

three-dimensional Gestalt figure, so any perception of a definite three-dimensional figure may be

traced to the active role of the perceiving subject. In this manner, Rosen demonstrates how

perception necessarily exceeds that “classical trichotomy” of “object-in-space-before-subject.”

In Figure 3, a Möbius Strip is used to demonstrate the non-disjuncture and non-identity of

the subject and object in sub-object event. Like the sub-object event of reversible flesh, the

Möbius Strip is a single continuous edge that folds in on itself without coincidence or rupture.

The final image of the bottom series in Figure 4 is a Klein Bottle. The Klein Bottle is a Möbius

Strip at a greater order of topological sophistication—it is a single continuous plane which passes

through itself without coincidence or rupture. Together, these geometrical anomalies

demonstrate the identity-within-difference and unity-in-diversity of the sub-object event which

call into question what Rosen (2008) has called the “classical trichotomy” of “object-in-space-

before-subject.” He ties the need for contemporary physics to avoid the classical trichotomy to

Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological ontology:

In sum, the phenomenological dimension of depth as described by Merleau-Ponty

is (1) the “first” dimension, inasmuch as it is the source of the Cartesian

dimensions, which are idealizations of it; it is (2) a self-containing dimension, not

merely a container for contents that are taken as separate from it; and it is (3) a

dimension that blends subject and object concretely, rather than serving as a static

staging platform for the objectification of a detached subject. In realizing depth,

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we surpass the concept of space as but an inert container and come to understand

it as an aspect of an indivisible cycle of action in which the “contained” and

“uncontained”—object and subject—are integrally incorporated.

Have we not previously encountered an action cycle of this kind? … The

discontinuity associated with quantized microphysical action [in atomic

processes] bespeaks the fact that this indivisible circulation undermines the

classical continuum, and, along with it, the idealized objects purported to be

enclosed in said continuum and the idealized subject alleged to stand outside it.

And concludes,

Broadly speaking, this suggests that, when the problem … can no longer be

deferred in the quest for unification, science can no longer conduct business as

usual. Instead, a whole new basis for scientific activity is required, a new way of

thinking about object, space, and subject, one cast along the lines of Merleau-

Pontean depth. (p. 50)

Rosen calls for a phenomenological physics. For the purposes of the present project, this has

been modified to meet the needs of the intersection between classical physics and psychology—

namely, the psychophysics of Fechner (1966). The “identity-within-difference” and “unity in

diversity” will be taken up within the scope of psychophysics. Two perspectives on a

phenomenological psychophysics emerge. The first follows the classical psychophysical model

and emphasizes the event of perception with psychical and physical poles. Visual perception

tasks demonstrate the differences and interaction between subject-processes and object-

processes—that is, the two are not radically disjunct nor is one is reducible to the other. The

second follows the classical physicalist model of psychology. Rather than argue that

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mechanically-defined physical states cause psychical states, physical states are understood as

dynamic and context-specific events which regularly circumvent mechanical causation.

Minding the Écart: Order out of Quantum Uncertainty, Chaos

After discussing the phenomenological psychophysical sub-objective event in terms of its

import for the present project, a single issue still demands attention. It was argued that the sub-

objective event conciliates nature by emphasizing the latter’s unity in diversity (Rosen, 2008)

and identity-within-difference (Dillon, 1988/1998). Rather than unite the dualities which plague

Western metaphysics, these articulate the conciliation of dualities in a way that does not call for

their identity, nor does it require radical disjunction. In order to maintain a unity which is also

diverse and an identity which is also different, each identifies a non-coincident convergence.

Merleau-Ponty’s concepts of “dehiscence”, “fission”, and “écart” have been used to understand

these asymmetrical unities. The apparent discontinuity between, for example, a three-

dimensional Necker Cube image (Figure 1) and the one which replaces it is impressive. Indeed,

it seems almost instantaneous. One does not lose the cube figure and then search for another;

there is not a Gestalt limbo into which one falls. There is an unexplained gap in figural

perception. The gap is not necessarily one of time or space; indeed, these seem to collapse into

this écart. It is not sufficient to indicate this non-coincidental unity with a question mark—e.g.,

“subject ? object.” Attention will presently be directed towards this question mark—that

is, how might the écart be understood? This will be done by considering quantum uncertainty as

well as chaos theory, both of which have some history making sense of mysterious question

marks.

The first part of this section has explored the phenomenological psychophysical sub-

objective event of experience. This event conciliates the bifurcated elements of psychology by

demonstrating nature’s unity in diversity (Rosen, 2008) and identity-within-difference (Dillon,

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1988/1998). For Wundt (1897), this is the psychological event which unifies “experiencing

subject” and “objects of experience”; for Fechner (1859/1966), this is the psychophysical event

which unifies “inner” and “outer” processes—that is, psychical and physical; for Whitehead

(1929/1978), this is the epistemological event which unifies knower and known, or “subject” and

“superject”; and for Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968), this is the ontological event of flesh which

unifies sensible with sentient. In terms of the present project—where conciliation between

disparate, bifurcated elements of being is sought—the phenomenological psychophysical sub-

objective event provides an apt model for understanding nature as flesh (Merleau-Ponty,

1964/1968) and as an undivided fabric (Whitehead, 1920/2012). Yet it does so without ignoring

the apparent dividing gap, four examples of which have been listed previously. This is to say

that the phenomenological psychophysical sub-objective event recognizes unity in diversity, and

identity within difference. It is incorrect to say that the apparent discontinuity between, for

Fechner, psychical and physical is actually a unity; it is also incorrect to say that the event marks

the coincidence of physics and psychics; and it is finally also incorrect to say that the physical

and the psychical are radically disjunct. It is unity in diversity, identity within difference. It is

only in this manner that Whitehead’s (1938/1958) hope for conciliation may be understood

without turning the clock back twenty-five centuries on Western metaphysics.

Notice the propositional relationship between the examples supplied by Rosen (2008) and

Dillon (1988/1998)—Rosen proposes unity in diversity and Dillon proposes identity within

difference. Borrowing once more from Fechner’s observed division of the psychophysical event:

it is not as though the event is psychical and physical—that is, a bit of psychics and a bit of

physics. If this were the case it could be argued that the physical co-occurs with the psychical

and their relationship is one of near-simultaneity. No, it is physical in its psychical mode, or

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psychical within its physical mode. With the prepositional relationship, these two constituents of

Fechner’s psychophysical event are found intimately related (i.e., not disjunct), yet also not

identical (i.e., reaching no coincidence).

Three models were used to demonstrate this event: The Necker Cube, the Möbius Strip,

and the Klein Bottle. Incidentally, each of these provides a model for the event of conciliation,

yet they fail to map the relationship between apparently discrete constituent elements. The first

model came from Gestalt Perception Theory and is the image of the Necker Cube (Figure 1).

The Necker Cube is a particular configuration of twelve lines in two-dimensional space. It was

argued that The Necker Cube image is in fact no cube at all. Indeed, the cube only emerges as an

intentional event. As a sub-objective event, The Necker Cube is commonly perceived as two

mutually exclusive three-dimensional figures. The image is pregnant with both figures, but it

can never present as both simultaneously—the two figures are not identical. This was

demonstrated in Figure 2. Though each three-dimensional figure occupies a different orientation

in three-dimensional space, one could not adjust the qualities of one cube-figure without also

adjusting the other cube-figure—the two figures are not radically disjunct.

The Möbius Strip and Klein Bottle models provided examples to the sub-objective event

by their indefatigable recalcitrance to being modeled in physico-geometrical space. The Möbius

Strip is a two-dimensional figure which can only be modeled in three-dimensional space. This is

because it is a continuous edge which must pass through itself without rupturing its continuity; a

third dimension is required to do so. The Klein Bottle is a Möbius Strip at a higher level of

topological sophistication. It is a continuous three-dimensional surface which must pass through

itself without rupturing its continuity. The Möbius Strip and Klein Bottle provide examples of

the unity between opposites (inside and outside for the Möbius Strip and internal and external for

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the Klein Bottle), yet both do so without relying on a point of coincidence where, e.g., internal

and external meet. Once again, this is to say that the opposites contained within each of these

models are not identical, but they are not radically disjunct either.

Necker Cube, Möbius Strip, and Klein Bottle each model nature’s unity in diversity, but

they may only do so by admitting a gap. The Necker Cube is pregnant with two mutually

exclusive three-dimensional figures. When viewing one, these figures will change without any

volitional effort on the part of the perceiving subject. It was explained that this is not a gradual

process, but a shift which occurs all the way and at once. Thus, the unity between the different

three-dimensional figures never coincides at a point of identity between them—else a subject

would be able to perceive two Necker Cube figures simultaneously, and this does not happen.

There is a gap between one three-dimensional cube and the one which replaces it. This same gap

may be found at the point at which the Möbius Strip must pass through itself, or the line-segment

at which the Klein Bottle must pass through itself. If these points or lines indicated coincidences

of inner/internal and outer/external, then the geometrical models would be topologically

imperfect. It can only be understood that instead of a convergence or coincidence, there is a

dehiscence, fission, or écart (Dillon, 1988/1998). Because this écart of the sub-objective event

marks the transformation from one entity to a possible many and this occurs instantaneously, it

will be compared to the quantum event where chaos theory is used to understand the relationship

between antecedent and consequent states.

Chaos and quantum uncertainty. The suggestion that there is some uncertainty about

what happens during an experimental event is not out of the ordinary. Indeed, an entire scientific

discipline has erected around this very idea. As discussed at some length in the project

introduction, and at great length in Prigogine and Stengers (1984), Rosen (2008), and Stapp

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(2011), the classical physical model has long been found breaking down at the level of physical

quanta. Following the progress of Newtonian classical physics, it seemed as though the

interactive behavior of all physical bodies with all other physical bodies could be predicted in

advance. This is because physical bodies interact based on certain and identifiable laws.

Incidentally, these laws were articulable and definable within the logic, language, and tools of

empiricism. When the latter become exacting enough to identify quantum matter—subatomic

particles—the logic no longer applies. Stapp explains the change,

All such things were believed, during the reign of classical physics, to be

completely determined, insofar as they had any physical consequences, by the

physically described properties and laws that acted wholly mechanically at the

microscopic scale. But the baffling features of new kinds of data acquired during

the twentieth century caused the physicists who were studying these phenomena,

and trying to ascertain the laws that governed them, to turn the whole scientific

enterprise upside down. (p. 6)

Stapp identifies the shift from away classical physics—which has been referred to as modernist

thinking throughout the duration of this project—that occurred during the quantum turn. Here

the mechanical-objective realism fell apart as microscopic physical particles were found

disobeying the laws that were understood to guide all physical bodies. Such a conception of the

universe was turned on its head. Stapp finds this quantum turn to be an important one because it

ushers in the need for a physics which does not assume a universe of preordained physical

events. By reintroducing uncertainty into the equation, science no longer has to be a study of

what we all know already to be the case (as it has been discussed in the literature review with

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Heidegger, 1927/1962, and Whitehead, 1938/1958, above); it opens the discussion up to wonder,

excitement, and possibility. He continues,

Perhaps I should say that they turned right side up what had been upside down.

For the word ‘science’ comes from the Latin word ‘scire’, ‘to know’, and what the

founders of the new theory claimed, basically, is that the proper subject matter of

science is not what may or may not be ‘out there’, unobserved and unknown to

human beings. It is rather what we human beings can know, and can do in order to

know more. Thus they formulated their new theory, called quantum mechanics, or

quantum theory, around the knowledge-acquiring actions of human beings, and

the knowledge we acquire by performing these actions, rather than around a

conjectured causally sufficient mechanical world. The focus of the theory was

shifted from one that basically ignored our knowledge to one that is about our

knowledge, and about the effects of the actions that we take to acquire more

knowledge upon what we are able to know (p. 6)

Stapp explains that the quantum turn required that science acknowledge the psychophysical sub-

objective event of nature. There is no object out there waiting to be discovered; there are only

potentialities of becoming. Even in laboratory experiments, the subject was found playing an

important role in object-events.

After two hundred years of neglect, our thoughts were suddenly thrust into the

limelight. This was an astonishing reversal of precedent because the enormous

successes of the prior physics were due in large measure to the policy of

excluding all mention of idea-like qualities from the formulation of the physical

laws. (p. 17)

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Before getting into the role of the subject in phenomenological psychophysical sub-

objective events, consider the shift that occurs in classical physics. Once again, the role of

uncertainty in the development of quantum physics is going to be useful in understanding the

phenomenological gap that is characteristic of the non-coincident, non-disjunctive sub-object.

Stapp explains that it has become increasingly important to understand physical properties as

events (he calls them “actions”) and not as discrete quantities or objective values:

[T]he quantities that classical physical theory was based upon, and which were

thought to be numbers, must be treated not as numbers but as actions! Ordinary

numbers, such as 2 and 3, have the property that the product of any two of them

does not depend on the order of the factors: 2 times 3 is the same as 3 times 2. But

Heisenberg discovered that one could get the correct answers out of the old

classical laws if one decreed that certain numbers that occur in classical physics

as the magnitudes of certain physical properties of a material system are not

ordinary numbers. Rather, they must be treated as actions having the property that

the order in which they act matters. (p. 19)

He continues in summary of the impact of this change:

It produced a seismic shift in our ideas about both the nature of reality, and the

nature of our relationship to the reality that envelops and sustains us. … Thus this

switch from ‘being’ to ‘action’ allows … a draconian shift in the very subject

matter of physical theory, from an imagined universe consisting of causally self-

sufficient mindless matter, to a universe populated by allowed possible physical

actions and possible experienced feedbacks from such actions. A purported theory

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of matter alone is converted into a theory of the relationship between matter and

mind. (p. 20)

Instead of predictably linear sequences of causality, physical matter is found unfolding out of

possibilities. That is, physical matter arises out of a set of possibilities indicated by the actions

or events that unfold. Every physical (space-time) moment indicates one such event; thus at

every physical moment, an actuality emerges from a possibility. Stapp calls these uncertain

physical event-particulars “cloudlike forms”—for it is out of a cloud of possibilities that an

actuality emerges.

The quantum state of a single elementary particle can be visualized, roughly, as a

continuous cloud of (complex) numbers, one assigned to every point in three-

dimensional space. This cloud of numbers evolves in time and, taken as a whole,

it determines, at each instant, for each allowed process 1 action, an associated set

of alternative possible experiential outcomes or feedbacks, and the ‘probability of

finding’ (i.e., experiencing)’ that particular outcome. (p. 25)

That particular actualities emerge from myriad possibilities proves vexing to classically trained

physicists. The chaotic ontogenesis of sub-objective events resists demonstration in classical

physical space-time. Physical space-time requires that definite objects with definite properties

interact in a definite way. The sub-objective event does not allow for the simple parsing of

physical bodies. Moreover, when understood in their individuality, the behavior of physical

quanta is entirely unpredictable. Deleuze and Guattari (1980/1987) have modified the language

of classical physics by replacing “individual” with “singular” or “haecceity.” Individuals,

Deleuze et al argue, occur independently of one another; haecceities are only constituted insofar

as they contribute to an event. They explain the physical event:

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There are only relations of movement and rest, speed and slowness between

unformed elements, or at least between elements that are relatively unformed,

molecules and particles of all kinds. There are only haecceities [singularities],

affects, subjectless individuations that constitute collective assemblages. Nothing

develops, but things arrive late or early, and form this or that assemblage

depending on their compositions of speed. Nothing subjectifies, but haecceities

form according to compositions of nonsubjectified powers or affects. (p. 266)

When viewed as singularities which occur within a sub-objective event, each unpredictable

singularity may be combined with the others as constituents of a larger event. In combination,

singularities are no longer completely unpredictable, but begin to follow particular tendencies.

The comprehensive event occurs with confident predictions, but its predictability does

not guarantee the likelihood of a particular quanta following said prediction. Schrödinger

(1944/1967) explains this molecular uncertainty and molar probabilistic certainty with the

description of Brownian movement.

Quantum uncertainty and probability: Brownian movement. Schrödinger explains how

there is room for understanding even when the particulars behave in a manner that is entirely

chaotic. Like Deleuze and Guattari above, Schrödinger argues that individual physical quanta,

when viewed within a collective, may be found exhibiting some order.

Because we know all atoms to perform all the time a completely disorderly heat

motion, which, so to speak, opposes itself to their orderly behavior and does not

allow the events that happen between a small number of atoms to enroll

themselves according to any recognizable laws, Only in the co-operation of an

enormously large number of atoms do statistical laws begin to operate and control

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the behavior of these assemblées with an accuracy increasing as the number of

atoms involved increases. (p. 10)

It is only when viewed within the collective, or Schrödinger’s assemblées that order may be

found exhibited by individual quanta. Schrödinger explains this through the example of

Brownian movement of minute fog droplets. While fog—that is, an assembly of fog-droplets—

will drop with a predictable velocity, the individual droplets follow an entirely unpredictable and

chaotic path (Figures 5, 6).

If you fill the lower part of a closed glass vessel with fog, consisting of minute

droplets, you will find that the upper boundary of the fog gradually sinks, with a

well-defined velocity, determined by the viscosity of the air and the size and the

specific gravity of the droplets. But if you look at one of the droplets under the

microscope you find that it does not permanently sing with constant velocity, but

performs a very irregular movement, the so-called Brownian movement, which

corresponds to a regular sinking only on the average.

Now these droplets are not atoms, but they are sufficiently small and light

to be not entirely insusceptible to the impact of one single molecule of those

which hammer their surface in perpetual impacts. They are thus knocked about

and can only on the average follow the influence of gravity. (pp. 12-13)

Figures 5 and 6 have been taken from Schrödinger (1944/1967, p. 13). Figure 5

demonstrates the glass of sinking fog, and it may be understood that as a collection the fog falls

at a velocity consistent with the force of gravity. However, were one to trace the path of any

single droplet (e.g., Figure 6), there would be no indication that any predictable force of gravity

is at work. Chaos describes the physical matter at the quantum level. However, when viewed

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Figure 5. Sinking Fog Figure 6. Brownian Movement of a sinking

Droplet.

within a collective these singular chaotic movements add up to a probable order. “Quantum

mechanics predicts, and predicts exactly, the probabilities of the outcome of the relevant

experiments, without (unlike classical physics) telling us anything about what happens in

between or how such outcomes come about” (Plotnitsky, 2006, p. 47). That is, the prediction

about the state of the fog-collective at any moment in time tells the experimenter nothing about

the state of any one fog-droplet. Indeed, a single droplet may be found rising instead of dropping

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between two particular moments of time—an observation which suggests that either time or

gravity itself is uncertain. The settled fog in Figure 5 suggests that the fog-droplets eventually

work their way down, but how they get there is entirely uncertain.

Making sense of chaos through the sub-object. The fog-sinking and its concluding

resting state follows the gravitational probability that physical matter will fall at a particular

velocity as a magnitude of its own mass. But how this transformation comes about is entirely

uncertain. In quantum mechanics, it is predicted that the beginning state of fog in a closed

container will fall at a predictable rate—that is, the beginning state is pregnant with the

possibility of a particular resting state, but how it gets from the actual to the possible is uncertain.

This is the “?”—the écart in the above discussion. Deleuze and Guattari (1991/1994) explain

this gap which they call a void:

Chaos is defined not so much by its disorder as by the infinite speed with which

every form taking shape in it vanishes. It is a void that is not a nothingness but a

virtual [i.e., potential], containing all possible particles and drawing out all

possible forms, which spring up only to disappear immediately, without

consistency or reference, without consequence. Chaos is an infinite speed of birth

and disappearance. (p. 118)

Chaos describes the state of an event at any moment of its transformation. The gap between the

two-dimensional Necker Cube image and its three-dimensional figural presentation to a

perceiving subject is marked by chaos. As Deleuze and Guattari note, this does not indicate that

mayhem breaks out and is resolved by a lucid, coherent, three-dimensional figure. Instead, chaos

defines the “infinite speed with which every form taking shape in it vanishes.” The two-

dimensional image vanishes and the three-dimensional figure appears. This happens suddenly.

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But what is to be said of space and time? In what space and in what time did the image

transform into a figure?

Not only does the quantum uncertainty indicate the instantaneous coming and going of

actual entities within an event, but the écart allows for multiple possibilities. In Figure 5, the

settling of the fog is predicted. However, the actual configuration of fog-droplets is entirely

uncertain. Indeed, some may actually rise as a factor of time and not the reverse. So too with

the Necker Cube image: two common three-dimensional cube-figures emerge, but Rosen (2008)

suggests a third (Figure 2). Which three-dimensional cube-figure follows from the Necker Cube

image? In the language of Deleuze and Guattari (1991/1994) above, the Necker Cube image is a

void, a virtuality of a three-dimensional cube-figure. Following Deleuze et al, Plotninsky (2006)

suggests the Feynman diagram (Figure 7) for understanding the role of chaos in the event.

“Every possible—virtual—event or transition can be represented by a Feynman diagram, and

much of quantum field theory consists of drawing and studying such diagrams and generating

predictions using them” (p. 49).

Figure 7: Feynman diagram

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In the Feynman diagram, the x-axis indicates space (left to right) and the y-axis indicates

time (bottom to top). Plotnitsky explains that the Feynman diagram “represents the annihilation

and then the creation of an electron and a positron via a virtual photon (represented by a wavy

line), with another virtual photon emitted by an electron later” (p. 49). Notice how the

annihilation and creation of electron and positron occurs simultaneously yet occupies an expanse

of space. Chaos is the instantaneous transformation which transcends classical space-time. But

this is only when it is understood that events occur in space before an unchanging subject—an

interpretation which Rosen (2008) has problematized as the “object-in-space-before-subject,”

above. Deleuze et al (1991/1994) maintain that the paradoxes of quantum uncertainty only rear

their head when it is assumed that the subject (that is, the experimenter) has an anonymous

perspective on the event in question. This is not the case Deleuze et al explain, because

“perspective fixes a partial observer, like an eye, at the summit of a cone and so grasps contours

without grasping reliefs or the quality of the surface that refer to another observer position” (p.

129). The argument here is that the quantum physical event includes the role of the subject—

that is, it is a quantum event for a subject. Like the Necker Cube image which only becomes a

cube to an intentional subject, the event of a physical quanta is only uncertain, unpredictable, and

paradoxical to an experimenting subject. This is where Stapp’s (2011) recognition above that

mind has been found effecting matter may be seen. Deleuze et al (1991/1994) explain in terms

of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. This principle states that an experimenter can measure

either the velocity or location of an electron but never both simultaneously.

Heisenberg’s demon does not express the impossibility of measuring both the

speed and the position of the measure with the measured, but it measures exactly

an objective state of affairs that leaves the respective position of two of its

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particles outside of the field of its actualization, the number of independent

variables being reduced and the values of the coordinates having the same

probability. Subjectivist interpretations of thermodynamics, relativity, and

quantum physics manifest the same inadequacies. Perspectivism, or scientific

relativism, is never relative to a subject: it constitutes not a relativity of truth but,

on the contrary, a truth of the relative, that is to say, of variables whose cases it

orders according to the values it extracts from them in its system of

coordinates…. (pp. 129-130)

Since electrons move too quickly to see, the only way to measure their velocity or find their

location is by firing electrons at them and measuring the effects registered by the fired electrons.

This is equivalent of saying that the electron alone does not have velocity or location—the latter

only become qualities when paired with a subject in a sub-objective event. That is, the

experimenter must interact directly with the electrons in question in order to understand the

latter; however, as soon as she has done so, the electrons in question have necessarily changed.

Deleuze et al argue that Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle only becomes an issue when it is

hoped that an experimenter can subtract herself (and her fired electrons) from the sub-object

event and get at the object-in-itself. The difficulty in doing this stems from the impossibility of

having an electron with empirical qualities; said qualities may only be found in an electron when

they have been literally forced upon it.

But there is a second point being made here too. Deleuze et al are not arguing for a

subjectivism either. That is, an electron is not an electron-relative-to-a-subject. This would

suggest that any particular entity could present in an infinite number of ways depending on the

individual subject. This is not what happens with the Necker Cube image. No matter how many

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subjects observe this two-dimensional collection of lines, a pyramid will never emerge as a

three-dimensional gestalt figure. This is because the Necker Cube is not pregnant with a

pyramid figure. Even though an instantaneous chaotic void separates image from cube-figure,

there is still a limit to what sub-objective gestalt figure emerges. Even Rosen’s (2008) Escher-

type figure (Figure 2), which resists Western sub-objective coherence, could be a virtuality given

The Necker Cube image. While this is unusual, it does not fall outside the pale of the virtual

Necker Cube image.

The chaotic and unpredictable relationship between entities in the sub-objective event

makes exceedingly difficult any effort to discern cause. They Necker Cube image is pregnant

with three-dimensional figures—so must it be understood that the Necker Cube image causes the

three-dimensional figure? To be sure, there is no cube without the two-dimensional

configuration of twelve lines. However, there also is no cube that has not been perceived by a

human subject. This is because the Necker Cube, as an image, is no cube at all—the cube only

emerges as an intentional, phenomenological sub-objective event. Both perceiving subject and

perceived object are implicated as causes in the cube-figure, so how is this even to be understood

in terms of cause and effect? Alternatives to the classical physics application of Aristotelian

efficient causation are suggested in order to better demonstrate the relationships between the

constituents of the sub-objective event. They are vicarious cause (Harman, 2005), reciprocal

cause (Abrams, 1996; Whitehead, 2014), double cause—efficient cause and quasi-cause

(Deleuze, 1969/1990), and Spinoza’s (1669/2000) reason or cause (Whitehead & Smith, under

review).

Chaotic Causality: Replacing the uni-directional cause with vicarious, reciprocal,

double, and Spinozist causes. In order to understand an alternative consideration of the

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relationship between cause and effect in a sub-objective space-time event, we must first discern

the traditional conceptions of causality—“efficient causality” qua Aristotle—from the causality

as conceived by Spinoza. Deleuze (1970/1988) explains:

Traditionally, the notion of cause of itself was employed with many precautions,

by analogy with efficient causality….

…Spinoza overturns tradition doubly since efficient cause is no longer the

first meaning of a cause, and since cause of itself is no longer said with a meaning

different from efficient cause, but efficient cause is said with the same meaning as

cause of itself. (pp. 53-54)

When Deleuze mentions its “traditional” use, he is referring to causation as it was employed by

Galilean and Newtonian physics. Here an effect is determined by its cause. In modern physics,

the Aristotelian logical proof holds for physical bodies. For example, if A is the cause of B, then

the statement ‘if A then B’ would be valid and the statement ‘if B then A’ would not (for one

could imagine an instance where B could occur for a reason other than A).

It should be understood that the notion of uni-directional, efficient causality is implicated

in the failure of 19th

century, mechanical-objective realism. The assumption that the entire

cosmos operates based on the laws of Newtonian physics in classical space-time suggests that

any event may be predicted or determined by particular and discrete causes. These causes go in

one direction: from cause and toward effect; if cause, then effect. With the repeated failures of

the mechanical conception of the cosmos, the notion of a uni-directional and efficient causality is

also implicated. However, there seems to be considerable carryover into the models which have

replaced those of classical physics. Various instances of such carry-over have been outlined

already, and to these we might add 19th

century notions of causality. Indeed, in understanding

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the phenomenological psychophysical sub-objective event, one must not begin by tracing an

effect to its efficient cause—that is, starting with a phenomenological description and tracing it

back to its physical cause as in the “neural correlates of consciousness” (Koch, 2012). The

reverse is also false, an example of which may be found with Noë (2009) who argues that you

are not your brain.

By looking at the Feynman diagram (Figure 7, above), it is difficult to maintain a

classical physical space-time unidirectional causality. Either the unidirectional cause occurs

outside of space or it occurs outside of time. In space-time, it makes more sense to explain the

annihilation and creation of an electron as co-occurring. To be sure, one does not find one in the

absence of another, but this does not mean that one is the cause and the other the effect. As

possible alternatives to a unidirectional causal relationship between constituents of a sub-

objective event, I have chosen four possibilities. The first is the vicarious cause of Harman

(2005). In reference to the Feynman diagram, Harman would argue that it is through the virtual

photon that the electrons are vicariously annihilated and created. The virtual photon transcends

classical physical space-time; it is the écart in the event of becoming. The second is reciprocal

cause which may be found demonstrated in Merleau-Ponty’s (1945/1962) phenomenology. An

example of this from Abrams (1996) has been selected to demonstrate how with subjective and

objective becoming, the causal relationship is not unidirectional but bi-directional. This bi-

directional arrow of causality has been called reciprocal causality (Whitehead, in press). The

third alternative to unidirectional causality is Deleuze’s (1969/1990) double cause. Deleuze

indicates the apparent uni-directional cause that presents always along with a quasi-cause which

haunts it from the ether. And finally, Spinoza’s (2000; Deleuze 1990) reason or cause maintains

the explanatory efficacy of efficient causality and any alternatives provided there are insights to

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be gleaned. This position preserves the usefulness of 19th century mechanically causal

relationships that had proven beneficial for three centuries, but does so while acknowledging the

limitation to any comprehensive model of explanation.

Vicarious Cause. Harman has pushed the boundaries of Merleau-Pontean and

Heideggerian phenomenology in his efforts to develop a post-phenomenological ontology. Keen

on the realist insights of Heidegger’s (1927/1962) analysis of equipmentality and Merleau-

Ponty’s (1964/1968) forays into posthuman subjectivity, Harman argues that one need not

introduce an intentional human subject in order to have a dynamic fabric of earthly things. In the

language of the present project, Harman might defend an obj-objective dynamic realism. While

this holds little in store for psychology, Harman’s dynamic object-orientation supplies an

interesting argument for a novel sense of causal relationships between things. He calls this

vicarious causation.

“Vicarious causation,” Harman (2005) explains, “is not a special burden of human

consciousness, but the very music of the world” (p. 169). One immediately sees the influence of

Merleau-Ponty’s flesh without the trappings of any subject-centric ontology. By attempting to

remove all trace of human consciousness from the relationships between worldly things, Harman

is able to avoid “carrying over” the classical causal notions of physical space-time.

Objects are no longer merely unverifiable hypotheses that perhaps lie somewhere

out there beyond our perception and perhaps do not. Instead, though hiding from

all comers, they extend their forces into the world like the petals of a rose or the

tentacles of an octopus. The world is dense with sensual or elemental relations

between things. (p. 171)

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Harman argues that objects still interact without a human being ‘peeking over the shoulder’ of

them as they interact so as to catalog causal relationships. It is in the absence of the demand for

a causal explanation that the “elemental relations between things” may be seen. The relations

that Harman indicates are not the simple billiard ball relationships of the 19th century, but more

akin to the sub-objective event (or rather, the obj-objective event).

Vicarious causation is important to the present project because it provides a way of

understanding a causal relationship between two entities which never come into direct contact.

For Harman, this is because objects are also in part withdrawn. For the present project, objects

never come into direct contact because this presupposes a material or physical distinction and

separateness between entities. Both positions face the obstacle of explaining how an effect

occurs without a direct cause. “More concisely we have the problem of nonrelating objects that

somehow relate” (p. 91). How can there be a relationship between nonrelating entities? How

can there be an identity-within-difference? Unity in diversity? Indeed, each of these antimonies

find their paradoxical resolution in the event of becoming. The instance of the event’s becoming

could well be the cause. Harman explains the vicarious causation of the eventing between things

through a most unlikely example: a rock breaking through a window. It is an unlikely example

since it points immediately to a unidirectional cause in classical physical space-time. However,

Harman argues that the rock-breaking-window is the singular event out of which a particular set

of rock-attributes interact with a particular set of window-glass-attributes; the event constitutes

each object as such by limiting the sides of themselves shown to the world.

A rock breaks an entire window, not scattered points of isolated glass. What it

confronts, what it breaks, is the thing as a whole. Conversely, the window is

broken by the total piece of stone and not by independent dots of petrous matter.

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If scattered into clouds of stony vapor, the rock obviously could never have the

wider-scale effect that we do in fact witness. (p. 170)

Reciprocal cause. As an alternative to unidirectional causation, Harman has previously

suggested vicarious causation. The vicarious cause indicates a mediating third variable through

which entities vicariously interact. This mediating variable has been compared to the écart of

sub-objective unity, as well as simply the cause of the event—found in neither participating

entities (but only between). Harman’s position moves well outside of the notions of causality

supplied by classical physics. Reciprocal causation provides more of an amendment to the

classical temperament of unidirectional causality. Rather than a single vector moving through

classical space-time from cause to effect, reciprocal causality suggests that the arrow points in

both directions. This collapses the distinction between the entities in terms of cause because

their relationship is one of reciprocity. Since this position has been argued at length elsewhere

(Whitehead, 2014), a single example will be used to demonstrate how any seemingly

unidirectional causal relationship between entities in a sub-objective event is actually reciprocal.

Like the poets in Section I, Abrams (1996) describes the reciprocally causal relationship between

himself and a wildflower:

I cannot say truthfully that my perception of a particular wildflower, with its color

and its fragrance, is determined or “caused” entirely by the flower—since other

persons may experience a somewhat different fragrance, as even I, in a different

moment or mood, may see the color differently, and indeed since any bumblebee

that slights on that blossom will surely have a very different perception of it than I

do. But neither can I say truthfully that my perception is “caused” solely by

myself—by my physiological or neural organization—or that it exists entirely “in

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my head.” For without the actual existence of this other entity, of this flower

rooted not in my brain but in the soil of the earth, there would be no fragrant and

colorful perception at all, neither for myself nor for any others. (Abrams, 1996, p.

53)

Abrams explains the bi-directional relationship of intentionality (or prehension, Section III).

Cause and effect are shared mutually between Abrams and the wildflower. Like the

phenomenological psychophysical sub-object, one constituent cannot be changed without

effecting a change in the other. With reciprocal causality, the cause of an event may be traced

back to each of its constituent parts.

Double cause. Like the reciprocal cause above, Deleuze (1969/1990) suggests less of an

amendment to classical unidirectional causality than an addition. The classical understanding of

a unidirectional cause can stay, but to this one must add a second—“quasi cause.” Together,

events may be understood as following a double cause. “The stoics saw clearly that the event is

subject to a double causality, referring on the one hand to the mixtures of bodies which are its

cause and, on the other, to other events which are its quasi-cause” (p. 94).

For Deleuze, it seems that cause and effect are one and the same. There is no event

without cause and effect; there is no cause sans effect or effect sans cause. Thus, the event is

both cause and effect. Like the mysterious “third variable” in Harman and the inexplicable

unifying écart of the sub-objective event above, Deleuze’s “quasi cause” lurks about the event.

“We have seen that this cause is nothing outside of its effect, that it haunts this effect, and that it

maintains with the effect an immanent relation which turns the product, the moment that it is

produced, into something productive” (p. 95).

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Cause and effect both provide interesting details, but neither exhausts the understanding

of the event in question. From an immanent perspective, the event is the point of departure. One

does not begin with a cause, end with an effect, and then add the two together for an event. No,

like the sub-objective event discussed above, it is only in the event that the dual notions of cause

and effect come to mean anything. This is explored in Spinoza’s immanent causality below.

Spinoza’s immanent causality. Efficient causality, in the vernacular of logically-derived

physics, is unidirectional and linear. It is not so with the Ethics. Consider the relationship

between an isosceles triangle and its angle-measures:

In this case, one is not saying that first there is an isosceles triangle, and then there

is a triangle whose base angles are equal; rather, the reason involved here is the

timeless one of logical relationship. To say, then, that God is ‘cause of himself’ is

not to say that God first exists and then brings about his own existence; it is to say

that God’s existence follows logically from the concept of God. (p. 28)

Deleuze explains this double-meaning of causality:

A finite existing thing refers to another finite existing thing as its cause. But it will

not be said that a finite thing is subject to a dual, horizontal and vertical, causality,

the first being constituted by the indefinite series of other things, and the second

by God as to that which determines the cause to have its effect. (citing E1 P26; p.

54)

The material iteration of an effect’s efficient cause does not exhaust the understanding of what is

occurring. Spinoza begins the Ethics with the definition, “[b]y cause of itself I understand that

whose essence involves existence, or, that whose nature cannot be conceived except as existing

(E1, D1). Now one begins to see the two-part “efficient” causality that Deleuze has found in

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Spinoza. On the one hand, the effect on a material body may be traced to its material cause.

However, when understanding is limited to these material relations, then one must look back

further and further in order to find the first cause. On the other hand, then, one must keep in

mind that at the root of an effect is the nature of nature—becoming, God, or immanence—nature

is the cause of itself. A shrewd logician, trained in Aristotelian efficient causation, might

identify this as a tautology. Parkinson explains otherwise,

[F]or a thing to bring about its own existence, it must first of all exist, i.e., it

would have to exist before it exists. Spinoza would reply that this objection

presupposes that a cause must precede its effect in time; but this, he would say, is

not so. Rather, a cause has to be viewed as a reason—hence is famous phrase

‘cause or reason’. (E1 P11; p. 28)

By lumping “cause” together with “reason,” one sees that Aristotelian efficient causality is one

of a possible many (nay, infinite) reasons to explain an effect. Though tracing out the material

relations would still prove insightful. The history of modern science, as Parkinson (2000)

observes, has done precisely this:

The argument is that, over a period of many years, the sciences have made great

progress in the discovery of the causes of human actions, and there is no reason to

suppose that such progress must stop short of the ability to give a complete

explanation of everything that any human being does. (Parkinson, p. 30)

Parkinson maintains the utility of such a project, though this is a limitation of ‘causation’ as

employed by Spinoza. To be sure, Spinoza would not arrest such an enquiry; but he also would

not stop with the mapping of material relations of efficient causality. Thus, for Spinoza, one

must add the second layer of efficient causality: God. “More exactly, God is the ‘efficient cause’

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of absolutely all things. Spinoza does not define an ‘efficient cause’…; he seems to mean by it

something that produces or generates its effect” (Parkinson, p. 28, footnote).

Returning to the somewhat cryptic definition that Spinoza has given to cause: an effect, a

moment, or an event is always determined by its own essence (conatus); and the reverse. Nature

natures; how might it be expected to do otherwise? In summary, Deleuze offers a definition and

concept that will be used to discuss the dual-mode efficient causality of Spinoza:

Understood in its one sense and its single modality, the cause is essentially

immanent; that is, it remains in itself in order to produce (as against the transitive

cause), just as the effect remains in itself (as against the emanative cause) (p. 54).

Chaos in psychophysics: Applications in sense-perception and neuropsychology.

What remains is an application of the chaotic sub-objective event in phenomenological

psychophysics. The first will follow the typical Fechnerian psychophysical protocol where

cognitive maps of perception are traced. The second is a proposal for Fechner’s “inner”

psychophysical protocol—the one upon which he was unable to expound: it is the psychophysics

of inherent in neuropsychology (Stapp, 2011) and brain science (Deleuze & Guattari,

1991/1994).

In what originally seems like a classically physical interaction between physical and

psychical particles, it is argued that Fechnerian psychophysics is inherently intentional. This is

to say that psychophysics requires a phenomenological component through which one may trace

the non-coinciding, non-disjunctive unity of the sub-objective event. Integral to the sub-

objective event, as this section has demonstrated, is the role of chaos. Chaos in time-space

directs the becoming of the sub-objective event. This occurs through the instantaneous écart or

void out of which virtualities become actualities. Rather than being understood as independent

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individuals, subjects and objects are haecceities or singularities; this means that a tracing of the

event may be found within them and the reverse.

Fechner (1859/1966) anticipates the argument made by Deleuze and Guattari

(1991/1994) that perception theory “concerns the theory of the brain just as much as the

conception of perception” (p. 208). Fechner, it will be shown, suggests that one could study

psychophysics by starting from the inside—the inner processes of psychics—as one could by

starting from the outside. As such, the second application of chaos in psychophysics must be

made by turning to the inner processes of psychics. For this project, it will be as Deleuze and

Guattari suggest—brain science. Stapp (2011) argues that quantum uncertainty and probability

clouds may be used to understand neural chaos. The probability that an electrical message will

pass through a nerve-terminal may be predicted with reasonable certainty, but this says nothing

of the behavior of any singular nerve-synapse. The singular nerves behave in a manner more

demonstrative of chaos than predictable certainty. That is, the passage of electricity through an

entire nerve-terminal comprises myriad instances of uncertain excitation. Stapp maintains that at

any one of these synapses, an idea can intercede and influence the state of the constituent

neuronse. Sense-perception and neuropsychology together comprise the phenomenological

psychophysical sub-objective event. They will be taken up respectively in the following section.

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CHAPTER FOUR:

METHODS FOR INVESTIGATING THE PSYCHOLOGICAL

SUB-OBJECTIVE EVENT OF EXPERIENCE

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Section IV:

Phenomenological Psychophysics

We can trace the development of a nervous system and correlate it with the

parallel phenomena of sensation and thought. We see with undoubting certainty

that they go hand in hand. But we try to soar in a vacuum the moment we seek to

comprehend the connection between them… Man as object is separated by an

impassable gulf from man as subject. There is no motor energy in intellect to

carry it without logical rupture from one to the other. (Tyndall, 1874; in Stapp,

2013, p. 1)

In Section V, the sub-object was explored as a link between the parts of experience that

have been traditionally kept separate—namely, subjects and objects. Psychology is the

conciliation between these two. The sub-object has been presented as the focus of psychology

qua Wundt (1897) and James (1890/2007, 1899/1962), and it has three possible methods of

exploration—psychophysics, human science, and object-oriented psychology (which could also

be called a psychology of things). The first emphasizes their interaction; the second emphasizes

the experiencing subject, and the third emphasizes the object of experience. The remaining three

sections will consider these methods in turn. The present section considers Fechner’s

(1859/1966) program for psychophysics which features sensation of external stimuli (outer) and

internal physiological processes (inner). It is argued that each of these is best understood by a

phenomenological sub-objective model and not a classical physical (i.e. 19th century) model.

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The sub-object is the “identity-within-difference” or “unity in diversity” event in which one finds

a subjective and objective pole. In Wundt’s (1897) language these are the “experiencing

subject” and the “object of experience” bound together in the sub-objective event of experience

(p. 3). In Fechner’s language, described below, this would be the inner (psychological

processes) and outer (physical processes) which together comprise a psychophysical event. In

review, two important features have been explicated regarding the sub-object. First, the two

poles of the unitary event are not radically disjunct from one another; and second, the two poles

never reach absolute coincidence. These two features have been explored with the aid of several

examples. In each example, two forms are found emerging from a single entity that are not

reducible to one another, yet neither can be removed or modified without a change to the other.

This conciliating between subject and object has been described as phenomenological since this

requires the mutual contingency between objects and subjects.

The phenomenological intertwining that is characteristic of the sub-object may be

explored using the method of psychophysics. Like Wundt’s two-part project of exploring the

experiential event in psychology, Fechner (1859/1966) observes two poles to the project of

psychophysics. He writes,

By its nature, psychophysics may be divided into an outer and an inner part,

depending on whether consideration is focused on the relationship of the

psychical to the body’s external aspects, or on those internal functions with which

the psychic are closely related. In other words, the division is between the

mediated and the immediate functional relationships of mind and body. (p. 9)

By “outer part,” it may be understood that Fechner has in mind particular objects with

empirically measurable properties. In the Necker Cube (Figure 1), this would be the particular

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two-dimensional arrangement of lines and angles which have definite and measurable lengths,

angle-measures, and boldness contrasts. By “inner part,” Fechner is a bit ambiguous. At one

point he suggests that the inner processes indicate experiential qualities (p. 7), but at another he

suggests that the inner processes indicate nervous system activity (p. 8). Fechner’s ambiguity is

understandable since the psychophysical elements he focuses on are limited by empirical

methodological constraint to the “outer processes.” Both inner and outer parts of psychophysics

will be explored below.

To investigate Fechner’s “outer part,” I will explore visual perception studies using the

Weber-Fechner law. In doing so it is necessary to also consider the role of Fechner’s psychical

or experiential pole (p. 7) of psychophysics. Like the images explored above, this will

demonstrate the non-coincidental, yet non-disjunctive relationship between objective image

(stimulus) and subjective perception (percept). The sub-objective psychophysical event may in

some cases be predicted and understood from an object-centered and empirically validated

vantage point, but this is not always the case. In some cases, the sub-objective psychophysical

event may only be predicted and understood from an intentional-subject-centered and

phenomenological vantage point. Both cases are contingent on objective and phenomenological

elements; psychophysics is impossible without consulting subject and object. As Whitehead

(1929/1978) reminds us: “An actual entity is at once the subject experiencing and the superject

of its experiences. It is subject-superject, and neither half of this description can for a moment be

lost sight of” (p. 29). It will be argued that in both inner and outer methods of psychophysics, it

is the sub-object that is being investigated.

Note that Fechner’s “experiential” definition of the “inner part” of psychophysics has

been included in the investigation of visual perception. This leaves his second definition of

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“inner” which emphasizes the role of the nervous system in an event of experience. At the time

of his writing, Fechner observed that necessary attention had not yet been given to the neural

processes that are participant to events of experience. Fifteen decades later—one of which has

been dubbed “the decade of the brain,” there is a great wealth of exacting attention on the role of

the nervous system in a host of experiential processes. These will be considered from a psycho-

physical vantage point proposed by Stapp (2011) which, incidentally, has also been informed by

the process ontology of Whitehead (1929/1978). Finally, Stapp’s neural events will be

considered alongside Rosen’s (2008) proposal for a phenomenological psychophysics; this will

be demonstrated through the medical example of the placebo effect.

Fechner and the Phenomenology of Classical Psychophysics

Like Wundt’s (1897) Outlines of Psychology, Fechner (1859/1966) had in mind a dual-

aspect project of psychology. Indeed, Fechner’s guiding theory for psychophysics was that

psychical and physical processes combine together in an experiential event. “Briefly,

psychophysics refers to the physical in the sense of physics and chemistry, [and] to the psychical

in the sense of experiential psychology” (p. 7). Moreover, each can be understood as

constituents of a phenomenal event (and not a metaphysically ideal entity).

For Fechner, the physical and psychical poles of experience are always interrelated, and

this is not a relationship of unidirectional causality. It is more accurate to speak of mental

activity and physical activity as reciprocally causal (see Section III). That is, mental activity co-

occurs with physical activity, and the reverse. Fechner refers to this as “accompaniment” across

these two poles of experience. He writes,

All our mental activity has dependent upon it an immediate activity in our brain,

or is accompanied immediately by brain activity, or else directly causes the

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activity, of which the effects then are transmitted to the external world via the

medium of our neural and effector organs. (p. 8)

Whether the mental activity causes neural activity or the reverse is uncertain. This causality has

been drawn into question in Section V. The question becomes: from which side does the

psychophysical investigation begin? Fechner is confident that psychical and physical are linked.

For example, he explains how “Insofar as a functional relationship linking body and mind exists,

there is actually nothing to prevent us from looking at it and pursuing it from the one direction

rather than from the other” (p. 8). However, as mentioned previously, the tools that had been

available and the methodological commitments at the time favored a particular direction of

investigation. Fechner continues,

There is a reason, however, why psychophysics prefers to make the approach

from the side of the dependence of the mind on the body rather than the contrary,

for it is only the physical that is immediately open to measurement, whereas the

measurement of the psychical can be obtained only as dependent on the physical.

(p. 8)

Fechner’s guiding conviction proves to be consequential for the present project. It seems

as though the particular direction of investigation that psychophysics has followed—the way in

which psychical states are dependent on physical states—is not the identity of psychophysics.

The division of perception into “awareness” and “cause of awareness,” Whitehead’s observed

bifurcation of perceptual experience, is entirely arbitrary. Instead of indicating a necessary order

of operations in an event of experience, it merely indicates the state of the 19th century art of

perception studies. Given the 19th century preoccupation with mechanical-objective realism, it is

understandable that psychophysics would emphasize physical processes which cause psychical

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processes. According to Fechner, however, this direction could be reversed without missing the

psychophysical phenomenon.

The century following Fechner’s proposal for an experimental psychophysics has seen

the vast development of procedural and analytic methodologies that concern psychical or

subjective processes. In the present work, this has included the tradition of phenomenology.

Following closely the work of the Berlin School of Gestalt Perception Theory, Husserl and

Merleau-Ponty have carefully explicated the structure of experience. Like Gestalt images in

subjective perception, experience may be understood to cohere around particular and meaningful

wholes. This is to say that experience does not arise arbitrarily, but follows basic patterns of

emergence. Indeed, it is quite likely that one may now begin with psychical experience—that is,

a subjective protocol—and work towards an understanding of its physical “accompaniment.” In

this capacity, it would not be unusual to hear of mental states causing brain states. This has been

demonstrated at length with studies of neuroplasticity (many instances of this psychophysical

reversal have been cited in Noë, 2009). Before considering the phenomenological reversal of

Fechner’s psychophysics, observe the necessary role of phenomenology even in the physically-

oriented project.

Horst (2005) argues that even classical psychophysics—the psychological

experimentation of a physicalist ilk—requires a certain element of faith in phenomenological

investigation. He explains this through the example of the Weber-Fechner Law. First, the

Weber-Fechner Law:

One might intuitively assume that when a stimulus A seems twice as bright as a

stimulus B, this is because the intensity of the light reflected from A is twice as

intense as that reflected from B—i.e., that the subjective impression of brightness

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is a linear function of stimulus intensity. But Weber’s experiments showed that

this was not the case. Rather, subjective brightness is a logarithmic function of

stimulus intensity. The Weber-Fechner law gives us a precise description of one

aspect of vision: a general mathematical law governing the relationship between

the intensity of the stimulus (i.e., luminance) and that of the percept (i.e.,

brightness). These data, moreover, serve as a constraint upon further theoretical

work in vision: any viable model of vision needs to accommodate the Weber-

Fechner law. (p. 3)

The Weber-Fechner law describes the transformation that occurs between the empirically

measurable stimulus and the phenomenologically described percept. If it were the case that the

event of perception could be simply understood as “awareness and cause of awareness”—that is,

subjective components which are caused by objective components—then the Weber-Fechner law

would never have been established. Phenomenology proves integral to this well known

psychophysical law. Horst explains,

If the Weber-Fechner law is a paradigm example of scientific psychophysics, and

its subject-matter involves a phenomenological property, then scientific

psychophysics includes phenomenological properties in its domain of discourse.

Moreover, since psychophysics is the major supplier of data that constrain

theories of perception, phenomenological properties make up an important portion

of the data that theories of perception try to explain. (p. 3)

The necessary inclusion of phenomenology in classical psychophysics by itself is an

interesting detail, but the role of phenomenology in classical psychophysical protocols does not

end here. Horst (2005) explains that the Weber-Fechner law fails to explain some perceptual

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occasions. These are instances where subjects will reliably see more than the Weber-Fechner

law allows for, or see less than what the law would predict.

One might expect on the basis of the Weber-Fechner Law, for example, that a

stimulus consisting of a surface made up of several patches of luminance would

produce a percept with different levels of brightness, and that the brightness of a

portion of the percept would be a strict function of the level of luminance of the

stimulus, in accordance with the Weber-Fechner laws. … There are, however,

numerous situations in which there are either many-to-one luminance –to-

brightness relationships …, or one-to-many relationships…. (p. 6)

In his example, Horst refers to images which feature patches of varying luminosities. There are

two instances in which the Weber-Fechner law has no explanation: first, a variety of luminosities

(separated by noticeable differences) are perceived as a single brightness; second, no change in

luminosity is perceived as a change in brightness. Since either example aptly demonstrates the

important role played by phenomenology in classical psychophysical protocols, only one will

explained in further detail. In some figures, subjects will reliably perceive variance in brightness

when there is no corresponding variance in luminosity—that is, subjects will reliable perceive a

“noticeable difference” when there is none.

Figure 8 is a Kanizsa Square (Kanizsa, 1979). The Kanizsa Square is an example of an

image in which subjects reliably perceive brightness variability which does not correspond to

luminosity variability. In terms of objective properties, the Kanizsa square is a perceptual

stimulus which presents two contrasting luminosities—four black ¾ circles on a white

background. The negative space made by each circle creates the corner of a square. Instead of

superposing the circles on a white background, the percept is one of a white square superimposed

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on a background of black circles which are superimposed on a white background. The white

square and the second white background appear as different brightnesses of white. Despite the

properties of the stimulus limiting the luminosity variability to two—black or white—subjects

reliably report a gradient in white brightnesses. It is impressive.

What is to be said of the disagreement between stimulus and percept? There certainly is

no room in the Weber-Fechner law to explain this transformation. It could be argued that this is

a subjective fallacy wherein a subject has added a brightness gradient where there is not one, but

this seems to be reliably generalized to all subjects. This is an instance where the direction of the

Figure 8: Kanizsa Square.

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stimulus – percept relationship seems to have changed. Rather than stimuli causing

phenomenological perceptions, a phenomenological perception has caused a definite object

whose properties vary from those around it. Horst (2005) argues that such a phenomenon must

be countenanced by psychophysics and not simply ignored as a perceptual illusion:

You simply cannot banish the qualitative aspect of such effects from your

description of the psychophysical data: eliminate the qualitative

phenomenological property of percept brightness and you have not sanitized the

portion of psychophysics concerned with brightness, but eliminated it entirely. (p.

8)

Instead of trying to fit the perceptual illusion into the classical, physicalist rendering of

psychophysics, Horst suggests including the phenomenological component of intentionality.

Regardless of whether or not a stimulus—e.g. the Kanizsa Square—has the property of three

luminosities, it has been seen as having three brightness. The Kanizsa Square as a discrete

object has only two luminosities; indeed, as a discrete object, the Kanizsa Square is no square at

all! However, we have learned thus far that there is no Kanizsa Square as a discrete object; there

is only the Kanizsa Square as a sub-object. As a sub-object, it must be understood in part by

intentionality. “This kind of Gestalt phenomenon” Horst explains, “is a very simple case of

intentionality. It involves seeing a region as a figure of a given kind, and seeing-as is intentional

in nature” (p. 11). This is because the Kanizsa Square is an event—a specifically perceptual

event. Without the event-process there is no square. As a perceptual sub-object, the Kanizsa

Square cannot be broken down into part processes—Whitehead’s “awareness and cause of

awareness.” These parts are invisible, or, as Wackerman (2010) explains in the event of

perceiving a red strawberry, “inexistent.”

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What the subject really sees are not her visual sensations, or excited retinal cells,

or photons approaching her eye—no, she sees a red strawberry. It is the object

itself that is primarily experienced by the perceiving subject, which is neither a

complex of sensations (psychology) nor an aggregate of organic molecules

absorbing or dispersing light of different wavelengths. The robust realism of

primary experience is undeniable: tangible and visible things are there before any

scientific reconstruction. (pp. 196-197)

It is by remaining faithful to Fechner’s original project for experimental psychophysics

that phenomenology has been found playing an integral role. Horst concludes with four distinct

roles that phenomenology necessarily plays in psychophysics:

1. The subject matter of psychophysical phenomena involves phenomenologically-described

mental states. …

2. First-person phenomenological description is vital to the description of psychophysical

data. …

3. The reliance upon phenomenological data does not result in any perilous unreliability or

problems of confirmation. …

4. The phenomenology of the percept is in fact central to the methodology of researchers in

psychophysics. (p. 13)

In summary, phenomenology is integral to the method of psychophysics. While this is

particularly evident in Gestalt images such as the Kanizsa Square, it may be extended to the most

classically physicalist models of psychophysics (Horst, 2005). This is to say that psychophysics

is not the study of how stimuli cause sense-perception any more than the reverse. Instead,

psychophysics investigates the unity between intentional subject and object. This might

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emphasize the objective characteristics of a stimulus in terms of the potential percepts with

which it is pregnant. These percepts do not exist alone in the stimulus, but are the potentialities

or virtualities of the stimulus. This may be understood as the typical psychophysical protocol.

One might also investigate the percepts as perceived by a subject. Once again, the percept is not

within the subject alone by herself; the percept is a possibility within the stimulus and permitted

by the perceiving subject within the context and environment of experience.

The psychophysical event described thus far represents a Gestalt. Gestalt Perception

Theory explains how the stimulus-image of four black ¾-circles upon a white background

reliably produces a square as a percept in a perceiving subject. The Gestalt event does not exist

within the objective stimulus, nor does it exist within the perceiving subject. Each of these—

object and subject—are necessary for the Gestalt event. The explanatory efficacy of Gestalt

Theory need not be limited to the event of perception. Indeed, perception is not simply limited

to stimulus and percept. Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962) has argued that the event of perception

requires a body. Only by including the body in the discussion of the Gestalt sub-objective event

does one see what Fechner means when he explains that psychophysics may begin with either

“outer” processes or “inner” processes. This is because perception is not simply a subjective

event, and nervous excitation is not simply a physiological event.

Merleau-Ponty, Gestalt Phenomena, and Psychophysics

Stated above and maintained throughout the duration of the present project, the point of

emphasis in phenomenological psychophysics is in understanding the relationship of conciliation

between subject and object. This is not to be understood as an identity: subjects do not share an

identity with objects. Yet it is also important that subject and object not be kept completely

separate either—that is, subject and object are not radically disjunct. In Section V, this has been

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called “unity in diversity” or “identity-within-difference” (Rosen, 2008 and Dillon, 1988/1998,

respectively). Thus, the same goes for the present conception of psychophysics. Echoing

Fechner, while the psychophysical event could be approached from either the psychical or

physical angles (intentional object or intending subject), it must never be understood that one is

tracing from the psychical to the physical. In the Kanizsa Square above, the square percept

adumbrates the four-¾-circle-image but never reaches absolute coincidence with said image.

The square percept is the chiasm between object-image and subject; the square emerges only as

this chiasm and does not exist in either the object-image or perceiving-subject by themselves.

A tendency in psychophysics is to suggest that the object-stimulus is paralleled by the

subjective percept. That is, the stimulus undergoes a predictable transformation within the

subject. Horst (2005) has argued that this is not the case. Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) was keen

on this insight in his unpublished notes:

No correspondence (parallelist or of pure occasionalism) is to be sought between

what takes place “in the body” and what takes place “in the soul” in perception: it

is the same misconception to seek in the physical world an exact equivalent of the

organisms or in the organisms an integral microcausal explanation…. (pp. 232-

233)

In the psychophysical event of perception, there will never be an unbroken line connecting

stimulus to percept (or the reverse), or nervous system excitation to experience (or the reverse).

Inner and outer psychophysical constituents mutually participate in the psychophysical event;

each is integral to the event’s unfolding. Like the Necker Cube (Figure 1), the psychophysical

event comprises mutually exclusive entities which are interrelated such that one cannot be

altered without also altering the other. One three-dimensional cube-figure contradicts another

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cube-figure; there is no correspondence or parallelism here. Just as the three-dimensional

Necker Cube figures and Kanizsa Squares exist only in sub-objective chiasm, so too does the

sub-objective event. In the images, there is no correspondence between stimulus and percept;

something new emerges in chiasm which cannot be completely traced back to object or subject.

The same goes for the psychophysical event. The inner and outer co-participate and the

emergent event is neither psychical nor physical—it is the chiasm between psychical and

physical. The psychophysical event is a Gestalt intertwining of subject and object, body and

mind, stimulus and percept. These emerge as a unity in diversity or identity-within-difference.

Subjects are not subject-to a psychophysical event; objects are not object-to a psychophysical

event. The event occupies the chiasm between these entities.

It was explained earlier that the Kanizsa Square is not produced by the image nor created

by a subject; it is the intentional intertwining of these two entities. So it is with the

psychophysical event. Merleau-Ponty explains that the psychophysical event is a totalizing

Gestalt which implicates body, world, and mind—none of which are primary and between which

no lines of correspondence may be drawn.

And who experiences it? A mind that would grasp it as an idea or a signification?

No. It is a body-- -- In what sense? My body is a Gestalt and it is co-present in

every Gestalt. It is a Gestalt; it also, and eminently, is a heavy signification, it is

flesh; the system it constitutes is ordered about a central hinge or a pivot which is

openness to …, a bound and not a free possibility-- -- And at the same time it is a

component of every Gestalt. The flesh of the Gestalt (the grain of the color, the

indefinable something that animates the contour or which, in Michotte’s

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experiments, animates the rectangle that “creeps”) is what responds to its inertia,

to its insertion in a “world,” to its field biases.

The Gestalt therefore implies the relation between a perceiving body and a

sensible, i.e. transcendent i.e. horizontal i.e. vertical and not perspectival world.

(pp. 205-206)

Many parts of this excerpt require explication. Merleau-Ponty first explains that the Gestalt

perceptual event includes the body—there is no figural formation without the observer’s body.

The psychophysical event, understood as a Gestalt or intentional unity, emerges in the chiasm or

écart between body and mind, subject and world. Also, the emergent event is not arbitrary but

an adumbration of the event’s constituents. That is, the potentialities of the psychophysical event

are not free possibilities, but emerge from the singularities of the constituent entities. Merleau-

Ponty references Michotte’s (1946) experiments on apparent movement of stationary objects,

and the inference of causation drawn by perceiving subjects. Like the Gestalt images above, the

movement of Michotte’s images requires a perceiving subject—the images themselves are inert.

Merleau-Ponty calls this apparent motion a Gestalt. Moreover, since this requires the

combination of an object-image and a perceiving subject, then the Gestalt event is necessarily

one of flesh.

Once again, it is found that the phenomenological psychophysical event is an example of

the reversibility of flesh. It is not merely an appropriate analogy as indicated in Section V, but

found as a literal intertwining of embodied subjectivity beholding an intentional object. The

Gestalt form is not imposed onto an object any more than it is demanded out of the subject. It

emerges out of their mutual con-ciliation. As such, the body must be understood as participating

in the Gestalt or phenomenological psychophysical sub-objective event. Like the object-image,

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the body does not cause the event to occur, nor is it caused by the event. The body is the setting

within which an event unfolds; it is the bed of possible eventing. Merleau-Ponty argues that in

order to understand the psychophysical event of perception, the body must be understood as a

participant to, and not the cause of, perception. The latter amounts to a classically physicalist or

positivist account of perception. Merleau-Ponty explains,

If this vertical-perceptual view of the world and of being is recovered, there is no

reason to seek to construct in the objective body, as the physiology of the nervous

system does, a whole mass of hidden nervous phenomena by which the stimuli

defined objectively would be elaborated into the total perception. The same

critique applies to these physiological reconstructions and to the intentional

analysis: neither sees that never will one construct perception and the perceived

world with these positive terms and relations. The endeavor is positivist: with

something innerweltlich, with traits of the world, to fabricate the architectonics of

the Welt. It is a thought that acts as if the world wholly positive were given, and

as if the problem were to make the perception of the world first considered as

nonexisting arise therefore. This problematic is of the type: why is there a

perception of the world and not no perception. (p. 231)

In what follows, Merleau-Ponty’s suggestion for physiological psychology will be

considered. As an integral participant to the psychophysical event, the body is found supplying

the possibilities out of which the event unfolds. The body alone is not sufficient in creating the

psychophysical event; the flesh of the body is not the cause of the flesh of the world. “The flesh

of the world is not explained by the flesh of the body, nor the flesh of the body by the negativity

or self that inhabits it—the 3 phenomena are simultaneous-- --” (p. 250).

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Fechner’s “Inner” Psychophysics: Stapp, Rosen, and the Physiology of Psychophysics

It has already been argued that classical Fechnerian psychophysics is necessarily also

phenomenological in nature. That is, despite borrowing a method from 19th century classical

physics, psychophysical experimental protocol has required the inclusion of phenomenological

data. The examples discussed above have demonstrated Fechner’s “outer” psychophysics. The

present section will consider the “inner.” Fechner (1859/1966) describes the distinction and why

his research favored the former.

Psychophysics, already related to psychology and physics by name, must on the

one hand be based on psychology, and on the other hand promises to give

psychology a mathematical foundation. From physics, outer psychophysics

borrows aids and methodology; inner psychophysics leans more to physiology

and anatomy, particularly of the nervous system, with which a certain

acquaintance is presupposed. Unfortunately, however, inner psychophysics has

not profited so far from recent painstaking, exact, and valuable investigations in

this field to the extent it should. Inner psychophysics undoubtedly will do this one

day, once these investigations (and those from the different kind of attack on

which this work is based) have succeeded to the point of reaching a common

meeting ground, where they will be able to cross-fertilize each other. That this is

not yet the case to any extent indicates only the incomplete state in which our

theory finds itself. (p. 10)

While it could be argued that Fechner has in mind a direct (i.e., logarithmic) relationship

between outer and inner psychophysical processes, I will instead argue that Fechner is keen on

the psychophysical event in which outer and inner processes participate (in an identity-within-

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difference or unity in diversity type relationship). This may be defended by the inclusion of

phenomenological data necessary for psychophysical experimentation. Moreover, if

psychophysics were to continue down the path of fidelity to contemporary physics, then it would

likely evolve a phenomenological perspective. Indeed, Rosen (2008) explains the need for

phenomenology in contemporary physics:

To be sure, enacting a phenomenological reversal [in contemporary physics]

would entail a truly radical departure from science’s standard operating

procedure. It would call for new priorities, a new posture, a new intuitive grasp of

object and subject. Instead of maintaining their stance as detached subjects

seeking to arrest nature via equations that objectify, physicists would need to

accept the transpermeation of subject and object by becoming active participants

in nature’s dynamic process. Why should physicists be willing to undergo such a

dramatic transformation? I submit it is because there is no other way for them to

achieve their goal of bringing the basic forces of nature into harmony. (Rosen, p.

89)

This, too, is the position of Stapp (2011) which has been discussed in Section V. To Fechner’s

outline of mid-19th

century psychophysics we may now add two things: 1) “outer” psychophysics

is itself inherently phenomenological; and 2) experimental tools have been designed that are

sufficiently exacting for the investigation of “inner” psychophysics.

Stapp will provide the model for “inner” or physiological psychophysics. Rather than

consider that physiological mechanisms are responsible for psychophysical events, these will be

understood as participants in the psychophysical event. This will be consistent with Merleau-

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Ponty’s (1964/1968) argument that the psychophysical event occurs in the chiasm between

subjects and objects—the event itself is the flesh of this non-coincidental intersection.

Stapp’s Mindful nervous system and a Whiteheadian psychophysics7. In Section V,

it was argued that quantum uncertainty and chaos theory are useful in understanding the point of

conciliation between subjects and objects, bodies and minds. This is because the sub-objective

event is a non-coincident coinciding, or non-identical union. Quantum uncertainty indicates the

unpredictability of singular event-constituents despite the predictability of aggregate events.

That is, molar occasions occur with predictable certainty despite a complete uncertainty about

the molecular occasions of which the molar are comprised. Sub-objective psychophysical or

Gestalt events occur with similar predictability (like the Kanizsa Square, above) despite an

uncertainty about how such a figure reliably emerges. In this part, the nervous system will be

considered as an “exacting” example of Fechner’s “inner” psychophysics. Stapp explains that

nerve-bundles interact with environmental stimuli in predictable fashion, yet individual nerve-

cells are better understood by chance. This makes the nervous system a quantum event better

understood by chaos than by linear, efficient causality.

Henry P. Stapp is a quantum physicist who has made great use of Whitehead’s process

philosophy in his research. In Mindful Universe, Stapp (2011) argues for a process

neuropsychology. The book provides a fascinating contemporary survey of the intersections

between psychology, mind, consciousness, and physics which may be read as an overview of

Wundt’s (1897) problem-space eleven decades later. After a familiar critique of Newtonian

physics, a summary of the quantum turn, and a quantum-physical explication of neurology, Stapp

directs his attention towards neuropsychology. Stapp argues that Whitehead (1929/1978) is the

only philosopher that has been bold enough to propose a quantum-physical ontology that

7 This section contains excerpts from Whitehead and Moss (in prep).

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accounts for the role of the observer. Stapp calls this Whitehead’s “ontologicalization of

quantum theory,” below. He explains that Whitehead “captures the essential innovations

wrought by quantum theory in a way that allows the human involvement specified by quantum

theory to be understood within a fundamentally non-anthropocentric conception of nature as a

whole” (2011, p. 87). While Stapp provides several chapters explicating Whitehead’s usefulness

in understanding research in physics, attention will instead be directed to Whitehead’s

application in neuropsychology. Stapp argues that Whitehead’s process ontology—which

recognizes the co-participation of subjects and objects in all cosmological events—provides an

insightful understanding when applied to neuropsychology. This is because it recognizes the

participatory role played by the nervous system in the environmental surround (or a social

nervous system; Siegel, 2012). This may be understood in a way that doesn’t reduce the nervous

system to subjective experience or the reverse. Stapp explains that Whitehead’s subject-object

structure of events may be extended to all phenomena.

In the Whiteheadian ontologicalization of quantum theory, each quantum

reduction event is identified with a Whiteheadian actual entity/occasion. Each

Whiteheadian actual occasion/entity has a ‘mental pole’ and a ‘physical pole.’ …

Thus, the Whitehead quantum ontology is essentially an ontologicalization of the

structure of orthodox relativistic quantum field theory, stripped of any

anthropocentric trappings, but supplied with an internal creative process that

makes ideas dynamically effective. This approach takes the physically described

and psychologically described aspects of contemporary orthodox relativistic

quantum field theory to be exemplars of the elements of a general non-

anthropocentric ontology. (pp. 96, 97).

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Stapp observes that the error in neuropsychology is in the assumption that the “experiencing

subject,” as a constituent of an experiential event, must always be found in the human subject

proper. This is to suppose that there is but one mental pole in the human organism. It is the

assumption of phenomenological explications of the nervous system (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962;

Ey, 1971; Noë, 2009). This limits the ontological importance of the processes that comprise a

particular human entity to the latter’s subjective awareness of them. However, the same mistake

could be made in the opposite direction, reducing the experience to bottom-up determinism.

The conjecture originates from the classical principle of the causal closure of the

physical which does not generally hold in quantum theory. That principle rests on

a classical-physics-based bottom-up determinism that starts at the elementary

particle level and works up to the macro-level. But, according to the quantum

principles, the determinism at the bottom (ionic) level fails badly in the brain

[argued pp. 41-45]. The presumption that it gets restored at the macro-level is

wishful and unprovable. (p. 48)

Stapp’s application of Whitehead’s ontologicalization of quantum theory is a

demonstration of how nature cannot be easily bifurcated without falling into traps of physicalism

or subjectivism. In other words, Wundt’s two-part project of psychology is precisely that; one

cannot remove the experiencing subject or the objects of experience and still hope to make sense

of what remains. Stapp argues that the direction for a Whiteheadian contemporary psychology

would consider the role of consciousness in psychological experience. That is, rather than

looking at the nervous system as a collection of interconnected mechanisms, Stapp would add to

this the role played by consciousness. This is reminiscent of the work of William James (1890).

Stapp supports this Whiteheadian approach by indicating the anomaly of the placebo effect (pp.

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145-152), and defends it by indicating its support of consciousness (pp. 119-138), free will (pp.

153-160), and ethics (161-167). The event of the placebo effect will be considered in conclusion

to the present section

Limitations of Stapp’s quantum nervous system: Rosen’s object-in-space-before-

subject. While Stapp’s quantum description of the nervous system in neuropsychology has far

exceeded the dictates of 19th-century mechanical realism, it has not yet reached the conciliation

argued for in the present project. This is because Stapp (2013, 2011) has taken it a step further

than indicated here. He has used the anomalies encountered in classically-rendered physics

experiments to defend the primacy of subjective processes. Rosen (2008) has criticized this

“object-in-space-before-subject” position as granting constancy to the subject. This has been

described as “carry over” from classical physics (Section III). The problem is that Stapp’s

position requires the subject to remain the same before and after the event of experience.

In the context of the present project, Stapp’s Mindful Universe in which subjects

consciously shape their nervous system and environment is guilty of maintaining nature’s

bifurcation. Like phenomenology has been accused of doing (Meillassoux, 2003/2012; Harman,

2002/2006), Stapp (2013, 2011) has made the object contingent on the subject. The bifurcation

is evident in Stapp’s response to the Tyndall (1874) quote that introduces this section which

concerns the impassible gulf between man as subject and man as object. Stapp asks “If there is,

indeed, such an impassable gulf, then a primary question is: On which side do we lie?” (2013, p.

1). That is, which side is privileged in nature’s vicious bifurcation. Following quantum physics,

Stapp argues that the object-centrism of 19th

century classical physics ought to be replaced by

one that recognizes the causal efficacy of psychological processes such as volition, will, and

attention. He explains the shift away from the classical mode and to a contemporary mode:

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Quantum physics constitutes a refutation of the idea that the motions of the atoms

in our brains are, like the motions of planets in our solar system, independent of

our mental intentions. Quantum physics elevates our conscious intentions from

physically impotent side effects, of a physically predetermined evolutionary

process, to dynamically essential instigators of our physical actions! The

intensive twentieth century efforts by some influential scientists and philosophers

to curtail the rational advance of basic science by clinging to simple nineteenth

century ways of understanding have borne no fruit. (p. 11, italics added)

Stapp suggests that the evidence from quantum physics indicates a reversal of the arrow drawn

between consciousness and body. It is conscious intentions which act as the “essential

instigators” of the otherwise inert physical bodies. More specifically, it is the ion-channels of the

nerve-terminals which obey quantum mechanical laws which provide an entry point for

conscious “instigation” or intercession (Stapp, 2013, 2011; Schwartz, Stapp, & Beauregard,

2004). For example, Stapp (2013) explains:

Our brains, for example, are highly quantum mechanical. Large amounts of

quantum uncertainty are introduced by the passages of ions through the channels.

The small spatial diameters of these channels entail large uncertainties in the

velocities of the ions emerging from them. A living person’s brain is therefore a

generator of huge amounts of quantum uncertainty. This uncertainty can percolate

up to the macroscopic level without being perceived either by the person himself

or by anyone else. Brains must therefore be treated quantum mechanically: That

is what permits the behavior of a person’s brain to be significantly influenced by

the free choices made by that person’s own conscious mind. (p. 14)

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Evidence from the psychology laboratory—where conscious attention is found shaping brain-

activity—is inserted into the gap of quantum uncertainty. Instead of physiological processes

shaping the mind, it is understood that the mind shapes physiological processes or that it in

principle could. In the language of the present project, this would be the replacement of the

objective-event with the subjective-event. I maintain that Stapp’s Whiteheadian

nonanthropocentric ontologicalization of quantum theory is insufficient for understanding the

phenomenological psychophysical sub-objective event. This is defended by Rosen (2008) who

argues that contemporary physics would benefit from a phenomenologicalization. The problem

with Stapp’s revision is that nature’s division (Whitehead’s bifurcation or Tyndall’s impassible

gulf) remains; it is only the direction of this relationship that has reversed.

What is presently called for is a phenomenological psychophysics of the sub-objective

event. This recognizes the apparent division between subject and object while also maintaining a

mutual integral relationship—that is, subject and object are not separate but they are also not an

identity. Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) has used the term “flesh” to refer to the capacity for

mutuality. Many models have been proposed that demonstrate this unity in diversity or identity-

within difference. One such example was the Necker Cube. The Necker Cube is a flat two-

dimensional object-image which becomes a three-dimensional cube only when perceived by a

subject. The cube is caused neither by the subject nor by the object; it emerges in the chiasm

between the subject and object and is thus a sub-objective event. By changing the two-

dimensional image (i.e., the object), one would necessarily also shape the subsequent sub-

objective event. This is the position taken by classical physics. It maintains that the independent

particles cause sense-perception. Stapp has reported many instances from contemporary physics

laboratories that subject can shape the sub-objective event in particular ways. This might include

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the volitional effort of inverting the three-dimensional Necker Cube which Köhler (1947/1957)

has noted is possible (though not in all cases). Stapp’s observations are sufficient enough to

amend the 19th century ontology of physical mechanism, but are not sufficient enough to

establish a 20th century subjectivism which it seems he has done. As it stands, it may be

understood that the psychophysical event is a complicated combination of psychological and

physical components.

Towards a physiology of phenomenological psychophysics. I am confident that

Stapp’s neuropsychological application of quantum physics is a good place to start in

understanding Fechner’s “inner” psychophysics. Indeed, taking for granted the evidence in

support of the causal efficacy of conscious awareness on cortical activation (Schwartz et al,

2004), there is good reason to suspect a causal role played by the experiencing subject. Add to

this the impressive impact that a cortical lesion has on conscious awareness and one is left with a

reciprocal mind-body causal relationship (Whitehead, in press; Whitehead & Smith, under

review). We are faced with what appears to be an independent subject, an independent object,

and a space which occupies them together. It is evident that this conception, with which 21st

century academia is eminently familiar, is carry-over from a 19th century ontology that assumes

definite objects in definite space. This is what has been called “object-in-space-before-subject:”

It is before unbounded subjectivity that bounded objects are cast (the word

“object” comes from the Latin, objicere, “to case before”). The crux of classical

cognition then, is object-in-space-before-subject. The object is what is

experienced, the subject is the transcendent perspective from which the

experience is had, and space is the medium through which the experience occurs.

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The relationship among these three terms is that of categorial separation. (Rosen,

2008, p. 6)

In order to overcome this bifurcation, impassible gulf, or separation, “science must be

regrounded in a new philosophy, one that can accommodate the intimate interplay of subject and

object” (p. 44). Two examples of a physiological phenomenological psychophysics will follow.

The first will follow a double-cause (Deleuze, 1960/1962) or vicarious cause (Harman, 2005) of

the body—specifically the nervous system—as a Gestalt event (Merleau-Ponty, 1964/1968;

Deleuze & Guattari, 1991/1994). This will be demonstrated by the placebo effect. The second

will follow a reciprocal cause where neuroscience and phenomenology are mutually considered

(Prigatano, 1999a, 1999b; Whitehead & Smith, under review).

The nervous system as a gestalt event. Gestalt psychology has produced powerful

evidence that discounts the explanatory efficacy of mechanism. This may be seen in perception

(Wertheimer, 1938; Köhler, 1947/1957), biology (Goldstein, 1934/1995), and learning

(Wertheimer, 1959). It is understandable that its inclusion in understanding the nervous system

would negate a physiology of mechanism. This is precisely what has been argued for by Stapp

(2011, 2013) above. This position is also echoed by Deleuze and Guattari (1987) who will be

consulted shortly for the development of the Gestaltist rendering of the nervous system. They

write:

What are wrongly called “dendrites” do not assure the connection of neurons in a

continuous fabric. The discontinuity between cells, the role of the axons, the

functioning of the synapses, the existence of synaptic microfissures, the leap each

message makes across these fissures, make the brain a multiplicity immersed in

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its plane of consistency or neuroglia, a whole uncertain, probabilistic system (“the

uncertain nervous system”). (p. 15)

Stapp uses the “uncertain nervous system” as an opportunity to insinuate the causal power of

conscious awareness. Deleuze and Guattari (1991/1994) indicate that this does not mean

“thought” now has power over the brain (argued pp. 209-210). In trying to understand the

relationship between thought and the body, Deleuze et al turn to Gestalt theory. However, their

conception of Gestalt theory is limited to perception; Deleuze et al appear to have been unaware

that Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) had argued for the inclusion of the body in the Gestalt event.

Here they describe their proposal for a Gestaltist rendering of the mind/body psychophysical

relationship as well as note their conclusion regarding its limitation:

The question, then, is a double one: are the connections [of cerebral maps]

preestablished, as if guided by rails, or are they produced and broken up in fields

of forces? And are the processes of integration localized in hierarchical centers, or

are they rather forms (Gestalten) that achieve their conditions of stability in a

field on which the position of center itself depends? In this respect the importance

of Gestalt theory concerns the theory of the brain just as much as the conception

of perception, since it is directly opposed to the status of the cortex as it appears

from the point of view of conditioned reflexes. (p. 208)

Deleuze et al acknowledge the appropriateness for Gestalt theory whenever mechanism has been

refuted. The reference in the second sentence most likely indicates Goldstein (1934/1995).

Goldstein explains how behavior organizes itself in a field around a center. If asked to make

large circles with their hands, patients will reliable do so on a plane parallel to the front of their

body. This occurs even when patients are leaning back or forward at an angle (such that an

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argument could not be made that the circles occur on a plane perpendicular to the ground).

Visual perception is even organized around a central focus even in hemionopsic patient (in

whom one might expect a left- or right-bias depending on which half of the visual field had been

lost). Deleuze et al suggest that the Gestalt experience must necessarily implicate the brain as

well—the brain has colluded with organizing principles in the event of perception. That an

experiential or perceptual event occurs in space and by way of a body, the nervous system must

necessarily play a role wherein the particular space it occupies matters. Merleau-Ponty

(1964/1968) finds Gestalt theory adequate to the task of understanding what he terms “the

‘psycho-physical’—a reference by which one noise passes from the ‘Exterior’ to the ‘interior’”

(p. 177).

For Merleau-Ponty, perception is always embodied. Thus bodies are implicated in

perception, as is the world in which the event unfolds. Gestalt theory suggests that such events

cohere around a central locus which need not occur in the object or in the brain or in

consciousness. He explains,

It is by principle that every perception is movement. … There is a point of

fixation that does not budge in the movements of my body (compensated for by

those of the eyes); on this side of that point there are apparent displacements of

the objects when my head moves, beyond that point there are apparent

displacement in the inverse direction: both are plus or minus variants of the

Unverdanderung of the fixed point… (p. 231)

And continues,

If this vertical-perceptual view of the world and of being is recovered, there is no

reason to seek to construct in the objective body, as the physiology of the nervous

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system does, a whole mass of hidden nervous phenomena by which the stimuli

defined objectively would be elaborated into the total perception. The same

critique applies to these physiological reconstructions and to the intentional

analysis: neither sees that never will one construct perception and the perceived

world with these positive terms and relations. The endeavor is positivist: with

something innerweltlich, with traits of the world, to fabricate the architectonics of

the Welt. It is a thought that acts as if the world wholly positive were given, and

as if the problem were to make the perception of the world first considered as

nonexisting arise therefore. This problematic is of the type: why is there a

perception of the world and not no perception. (p. 231)

Across these two passages, Merleau-Ponty provides the same dual-criticism as that of Deleuze

and Guattari (1980/1987, 1991/1994). Mechanistic neuroscience is insufficient in Gestalt

perception because these explanations are always reconstructions after the fact. But so too are

phenomenological explanations insofar as the goal is a comprehensive reconstruction of the

nervous system (e.g. one that begins with phenomenological awareness). Each of these

positions, Merleau-Ponty argues, is positivistic.

The psychophysical event of experience may be rendered as a discretely objective event

based on classical physical space-time; here subjective and objective events may be traced back

to an originary object-cause. However, the protocol of classical psychophysics prohibits this as

we have seen with the Kanizsa Square (Figure 8) and commentary from Horst (2005). The

psychophysical event may also be rendered as definite subjective event based on contemporary

physical space-time; here subjective and objective events may be traced back to an originary

subjective or conscious cause. However, this suggestion runs counter to the rules of perceptual

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organization by which particular assemblages of objects reliably yield particular Gestalt’s (e.g.,

proximity, continuity, etc; Wertheimer, 1938). What remains is a phenomenological rendering

of the psychophysical event of experience as a sub-object. The entire business of a posteriori

arguments regarding the instigating cause must be done away with. Indeed, these positivist

narratives may be understood as carry-over from 19th century metaphysics.

Consider again the Necker Cube (Figure 1). The three dimensional figures that emerge in

the chiasm between subject and Necker Cube image cannot be traced back to either subject or

object; the cube is a consequence of the sub-objective event. Both are required. The Necker

Cube image may be adapted to reliably produce particular figures thus limiting the range of

Gestalten, but a perceiving subject is necessary for any cube-figure to emerge. Thus there are

limits to the role played by each. Fechner’s “inner” psychophysics may be similarly understood.

Here one finds the physiological body (i.e., nervous system) and the psychical bodies (i.e.,

conscious thoughts, volitions, etc.). As a psychophysical event, it can be expected that the

nervous system plays a role in experience. The same goes for conscious thoughts. Indeed, there

is plenty of evidence supporting both of these statements. It has been learned from the

psychophysical event of perception that it is impossible to trace a sub-objective event back to

either subject or object. So too with the “inner” psychophysical event. It is more accurate to say

that the nervous system provides the bed of possibility upon which a particular psychophysical

event might unfold. Conscious thoughts may have greater or lesser impact on the direction of a

psychophysical event based on the circumstance of the event.

It has been argued that the psychophysics of Fechner is part physical and part

phenomenological. This physicalist rendering is easy to understand since this is how

psychophysics is typically characterized. The Weber-Fechner law and Gestalt Perception Theory

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have been used to demonstrate the phenomenological component that is inherent even in the

physicalist rendering of perceptual psychophysics. Taken together, stimulus and

phenomenological percept comprise Fechner’s “outer” psychophysics. This leaves “inner”

psychophysics, which Fechner defines in part by experience and in part by nervous system

excitation. Fechner (1859/1966) explains that an inner psychophysics of experience could in

principle be done, but the middle of the 19th century lacked the tools for doing so in a sufficiently

exacting manner. I have argued that contemporary neuroscience and physics have yielded tools

that meet Fechner’s demands for an inner psychophysics. Using Stapp’s (2011, 2013)

neuropsychology, Rosen’s (2008) phenomenological physics, and Merleau-Ponty’s (1964/1968)

notes on the role of the body in a gestalt event, I have argued that the nervous system participates

in the event of experience which may be understood in part by physiological mechanism, and in

part by conscious awareness. In sum, inner and outer psychophysics are both physical and

psychological, and “neither of these can for a moment be lost sight of.”

In conclusion, two examples of the application of phenomenological “inner”

psychophysics will be explored. Both come from the doctor’s office. The first is the

psychophysical event of the placebo effect. The placebo can only be understood as a

meaningful, phenomenological psychophysical event. As an exclusively physical event, inert

substances would have no physiological effects (and active substances would have a

physiological effects even when administered surreptitiously) but this is not the case. As an

exclusively psychological event, the placebo effect could not be measured empirically—that is,

the effect could only be measured by subjective report and not physiological change; this too is

not the case. The second example considers the treatment of traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Neuropsychiatrist George Prigatano (1999a, 1999b) argues that successful treatment of TBI

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requires mutual consideration of physiological elements like location and severity as well as

phenomenological components like the perceived concern of the attending physician (without

which rehabilitation of certain cognitive faculties is halted). Prigatano’s case demonstrates the

importance of phenomenological psychophysics in treatment.

Phenomenological Psychophysics in the Doctor’s Office: The Placebo Effect and

Neuropsychiatry

To conclude, two examples of inner psychophysics will be given as they may be seen in

the clinical setting. The first considers the well-documented (Moerman, 2002) phenomenon of

the placebo effect as a phenomenological psychophysical event following Frenkel (2008). It is

argued that the placebo effect only makes sense when it is understood to implicate physiological

and psychological processes together. The second reviews the interdisciplinary temperament of

neuropsychiatrist George Prigatano (1999). Prigatano exemplifies the psychophysical clinician

by his mutual consideration of physiological and phenomenological elements of client

experience. It is argued that these do not share an additive relationship, but together comprise

the Gestalt of client-illness.

The placebo effect as a phenomenological psychophysical event. The placebo effect

aptly demonstrates the interrelationship between psychical and physical components in medicine.

This is to say that the effect in question is neither a psychological effect nor a physical effect.

Indeed, both parts are required in order for the effect to take place. Frenkel’s (2008)

phenomenological analysis of the placebo effect as an intentional action will be consulted in

demonstrating its significance for the psychophysical event.

The term “placebo effect” has a rich history that has been explored in a manner

particularly relevant to its present consideration (Moerman, 2002; Miller, Colloca, Crouch, &

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Kaptchuck, 2013). For the present discussion, the placebo may be understood through the

example of an inert substance—that is, an object that does not have the property of affecting a

subject in a particular way. For example, a sugar pill object does not have the properties of

reducing pain or swelling in the body of a headache suffering subject; thus, for the headache

sufferer, a sugar pill is a placebo. The placebo is important to the biomedical model of health

and wellness because it appears to enable researchers to separate physiological effects of

substances from the confounding effects of treatment. Frenkel (2008) explains that this model

puts the placebo’s effect into the head of the patient:

Despite acknowledging its existence, there is a large resistance by biomedical

physicians to engage in a discussion about the placebo effect because it is often

perceived as something that can be fully accounted for within a first person

description, putting it “all in someone’s head.” (p. 59)

The biomedical model of health and wellness begins with the assumption that the body may be

understood as a machine and the doctor, a mechanic. Drugs are the substances which interact

with and influence the machine. If a headache sufferer is given a substance that ameliorates the

pain, then the pain reduction may be attributed to the substance provided the change in pain is

not “all in the patient’s head.” The placebo is used as a control against the ameliorating effects

of the event of treatment which could possibly confound with the effects of the headache-

abating-substance. Notice how the placebo implicates the entirely undifferentiated event of

treatment as a gestalt. Any influence that the placebo has on the state of the headache may be

attributed to the treatment gestalt itself and not the independent properties of the drug object.

Therefore, ‘experimental group effect’ minus ‘control group effect’ equals the influence of the

drug being tested. Kirsch, Moor, Scoboria, and Nicholls (2002) have collected evidence that this

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conception of the placebo effect is insufficient. Hull and Bond (1986) have demonstrated the

social expectation effects of alcohol (e.g., disinhibition) have been brought about by placebo

alcohol—effects which are not seen when alcohol is administered surreptitiously! Kirsch and

Rosadino (1993) have demonstrated a similar expectation effect with the consumption of

caffeine. Frenkel (2008) cites a collection of medical trials which also call into question the ease

with which treatment effect might be separated from pharmacological effect.

These examples preempt this criticism by capturing an essential property for our

discussion: they are measurable and observable. They do not solely exist

subjectively, but force themselves upon the perception of another agent who can

acknowledge that something has indeed happened in an empirically verifiable

fashion. (p. 59)

This passage indicates that the placebo effect is not merely “in one’s head” but may also be

traced to one’s body. But there is an interrelationship between the mind and body during the

placebo effect. Substances (like alcohol) will not have the same effects when administered

surreptitiously; subjects must know that it is being consumed. This is to say that the placebo

effect is also not simply “in one’s body.” Frenkel uses the “expectancy” conceptualization to

defend his argument that the placebo effect may be understood as an intentional event.

The main gain of expectancy theory over an explanation solely built upon

stimulus substitution is the addition of cognitive content. Expectancies are

anticipatory, as opposed to conditioned reflexes, which are solely reactionary.

Since expectancies are defined as consciously accessible beliefs about the world,

they appear to possess the property of intentionality. Thus, accessing an

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expectancy puts it squarely in the realm of an intentional state, and we can

appropriately label its associated placebo response an intentional act.

…Although psychologists were correct to seek an intentional account for

most placebo effects, the kind of intentionality built into the expectancy account

fails to include the body at the center of such effects. (p. 62)

In the examples of the caffeine and alcohol placebo effects, it might be argued that the

expectancy effects of consuming caffeine or alcohol were conditioned reflexes. Frenkel argues

that these effects are contingent on a greater array of cultural and social cues, making the placebo

event far more complicated than simple stimulus substitution (e.g., placebo alcohol for alcohol).

The placebo effect comprises a psychological pole (e.g., expectancy effect) and a

physical pole (e.g., administration of some substance or intervention). Kirsch et al (2002, p. 9)

have suggested the “balanced placebo design” for testing the interaction effects between the

physical and psychological poles of the placebo effect. This design may be seen in Hull et al

(1986) and Kirsch et al (1993). In the balanced placebo design, half of the participants are told

that they will be receiving the active drug (e.g., alcohol) while the other half are told that they

will be receiving the placebo. Within each of these two groups, half of the subjects are given the

drug and half are given a placebo for a two by two design: (told: drug, placebo) x (given: drug,

placebo). Frenkel (2008) might suggest that another variable could be introduced for a 2x2x2

design where the physician herself thinks she is administering the drug or the placebo since this

is necessarily also a part of the treatment-gestalt.

An inert substance can have an effect on a patient when the latter is under the impression

that the effect might follow. Frenkel describes scenarios where this is the case with peptic ulcer

disease sufferers (pp. 59-60) and Parkinson’s Disease sufferers (p. 60). In each of these cases,

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the patients undergo empirically observable physiological changes. The intentional attribute of

expectancy in these cases demonstrates the psychophysical nature of the placebo effect. To

emphasize the importance of this, consider its comparison with Moerman’s (2002) placebo tools:

Consider a thought experiment: We fabricate some placebo socket wrenches.

They look like socket wrenches, sound like them, and feel like them. But we

design them so that when you put the socket over the loose nut and tighten it, the

nut will stay loose. We secretly place these wrenches in the toolboxes of a

randomly selected set of mechanics at the car repair shop. Now, if we discovered

that the nuts these mechanics were working on really did tighten up, we would

have a good reason to be surprised. (in Frenkel, 2008, p. 73)

While this is a bit ridiculous to consider in the workshop, this is precisely what is happening in

the placebo effect provided the human is understood by way of the biomedical model. The

placebo effect demonstrates that “the psychological and the physiological are two sides of a

single phenomenon” (p. 74)—that is, the phenomenological psychophysical sub-objective event.

This also provides an argument for drawing a line of psychological demarcation around

particular event constituents. If it were the case that placebo socket wrenches were found

tightening nuts, then there might be occasion for developing a handbook on the psychology of

hex-nuts.

Psychophysics in neuropsychiatry8. Neuropsychologist George Prigatano (1999a)

opposes the conventional biomedical models of neuropsychology which operate with physically

reductive, uni-directional causation. This model begins with the assumption that all experience

is in principle reducible to neurology (Koch, 2012). This conception neglects the psychological

pole that has been explored in the present project. Evidence from Stapp (2013, 2011) and

8 Excerpted from Whitehead and Smith (under review).

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Schwartz et al (2004) draws this model into question. Like Rosen (2008) and Horst (2005),

Prigatano (1999a) suggests that this conventional model might benefit from the addition of

phenomenology. What results is a neuropsychology that recognizes the mutual relationship

between neurology and phenomenology in the experience of trauma in his patients. For

example, Prigatano explains how phenomenology is not only beneficial to assessment and

treatment, but that clinical neuropsychology might be incomplete without it. Indeed, without

considering the patient’s subjective experience, effective rehabilitation following traumatic brain

injury (TBI) is halted. Rather than working within the confines of a particular model, Prigatano

expands the possible avenues of understanding the patient’s experience, shaping rehabilitation

accordingly. For example, in some instances TBI is followed by a loss of self-awareness which

can be troubling for traditional neuropsychological models of rehabilitation.

Loss of self-awareness post brain injury. An impairment to self-awareness is common

in patients who have suffered TBI. Prigatano (1999b) observes how “this phenomenon has

always been associated with controversy because it is difficult to describe, classify, and

measure” (p. 146). That is, the validity of “loss of self-awareness” is difficult to demonstrate

with empirical measures. A general definition of this impairment might read: a disturbance in

consciousness that affects ability to accurately perceive or experience the changes in cognition

and personality” following a brain injury (p. 146). According to Prigatano (1999b), patients

often “lack awareness about the extent of their neuropsychological deficits and this characteristic

has been identified as a major barrier to good rehabilitation outcomes” (p. 76). Following brain

injury, patients tend to underestimate or overestimate the severity of their brain injuries. The

estimation of the patient’s capabilities is measured and compared alongside location of brain

injury, standard intelligence and memory testing, employment status, and the comparisons of

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relatives’ reports. Making sense of patient experience following TBI requires the mutual

consideration of objective and subjective elements. As such, relying on either physical measures

to the neglect of psychological measures (or the reverse) would be insufficient. Prigatano

suggests the goal is to “understand how brain injury has affected higher cerebral functioning” (p.

77), impaired self-awareness, and how this information can be used to help the patient regain a

productive lifestyle and cope with the problem of lost normality. That is, Prigatano maintains

that the patient’s experience of TBI must be understood as a psychophysical event.

Neural location of brain injury as an indicator of impaired self-awareness. Prigatano

(1999b) describes four broad different location- type injuries that may be indicative of the type

of self-awareness disorder that emerges. In these, size and location of the TBI may be found

having reliably occurring consequences. These demonstrate the importance of the physical

component of TBI. Prigatano (1999b) defines and describes these disorder effects:

Damage to frontal regions, may cause impaired awareness of socially

inappropriate actions or exhibit a lack of awareness about disorders of planning,

initiation, and so on. Damage to parietal regions may result in impaired

awareness of a limb. Temporal damage is associated with a wide variety of

impairments that include poor awareness of language dysfunction and memory

impairments. Occipital damage is often associated with disturbances in vision (p.

155).

These locations of brain injury may also help decipher the severity (that is, partial or complete)

of impaired self-awareness. For example in a partial unawareness case, Prigatano (1999b) notes

“a professor may insist that he is able to return to his job after a right-hemisphere stroke because

work has always been the way in which he has organized his life and obtained his primary sense

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of self-value”” (p. 155). Knowing where the injury is within the brain and the severity

(complete or partial) of impaired self-awareness makes it possible to predict and measure how

the patient may react to treatment, which also allows for individual modification and

customization of treatment and rehabilitation options.

Location and severity of TBI may be reliably related to the impairment of particular

cognitive tasks. These instances demonstrate the importance of the physiology of TBI. Despite

the strength of these relationships, location and severity cannot predict the impairment to a

patient’s self-awareness. For this, physical elements of TBI must be considered in conjunction

with phenomenological information.

Phenomenology as an effective method of measuring self-awareness post brain injury.

Whether the patient is experiencing a complete or partial impairtment of self-awareness can only

be ascertained when physical location and severity of TBI is considered alongside

phenomenological information. Prigatano (1999a) admits there is a lack of training in sensing

the experience of patients with brain damage within neuropsychology which includes addressing

patient experience during and following interviews, testing, treatment, familial relationships, and

home function. Consideration of each of these elements is important in understanding the

impairment to patient self-awareness. Prigatano emphasizes that in each case of patients who

typically spend an hour with the neuropsychologist before turning them over to a technician, the

patient complains the psychologist seems more interested their tests than them. Along with this

irritability and the loss of self-awareness, recovery can be hindered. When a patient’s autonomy

and awareness is acutely stifled by TBI, the exercise of these processes is necessary for their

subsequent rehabilitation. However, such rehabilitation does not follow when the patient is led

to believe that their experiences are insignificant and their emotions, ignored. In one example,

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Prigatano (1999a) describes the experience of a woman with a brain injury resulting from a

gunshot wound:

She often sat looking down, saying little to the therapist who worked with her. In

the context of a day-treatment program, she unexpectedly refused to participate in

one cognitive rehabilitation exercise aimed at improving her communication

skills. The exercise required her to be videotaped. She refused to be videotaped

(p. 78).

Addressing this refusal, the therapist gained insight to the woman’s frustrations via a

psychotherapeutic picture she drew reflective of her feelings. The picture is the projection of a

woman with no mouth, tears falling from her eyes, surrounded by the phrases: “I’m alone, I’m

behind, I’m mad, I’m trapped, I’m confused” (p. 78). A thick frame labeled a “permanent wall”

alongside a large question mark with a statement inside that reads: “I am not a computer, I must

have died because this isn’t living” enclosed the drawing (p. 78). Such a description urges one to

wonder how many patient scores that indicate debilitation are actually reactions to subjective

negligence? This demonstrates the practical utility of applied psychophysics in neuropsychiatry.

Prigatano (1999a) concludes of the aforementioned patient:

Her drawing reveals that brain injury not only affects thinking, it also affects

emotion and motivation substantially. The patient was overwhelmed by her brain

injury and felt belittled by those who wished to videotape her in a manner that she

perceived as insensitive. By the therapist accepting her feelings and not forcing

her to do something that she was emotionally unprepared to do, she not only

completed her course of rehabilitation but eventually obtained training that

allowed her to work in a very productive manner (p. 78).

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For effective TBI rehabilitation, the patient must be assessed and understood by

neuropsychological and phenomenological processes. As post-brain-injury self-awareness

impairments are extensively measured, their limitation to a single explanatory model can be

ineffective. Neural location of injury can be a helpful predictor of the type of self-awareness

impairment that may emerge and is useful in creating a successful rehabilitation regimen.

Rehabilitation, however cannot flourish under conditions in which patient experience ignored.

The patient must feel their personal experiences are acknowledged and significant to the

therapist to establish the imperative motivation needed for recovery.

Prigatano maintains the importance of a phenomenologically psychophysical

consideration of patients in the treatment of TBI. Combined with the theoretical consideration of

the placebo effect, this argues for a phenomenological approach to Fechner’s “inner”

psychophysics. Indeed, the psychophysical event of experience, when viewed from the inside,

must be taken as a phenomenological psycho-physical unfolding where both components are

understood as integral.

Fechner (1859/1966) has been useful in understanding the sub-objective event as it

pertains to psychology. His mid-19th century method for understanding experience has been

found considering both physical and psychological components of experience, combining them

in a way that is understood to be phenomenological. This goes for the classically physicalist

rendering of psychophysics—i.e., “outer,” as well as the contemporary neuroscientific

perspective—i.e., “inner.” In each, something new emerges in the psychophysical sub-objective

event of experience which cannot be traced exclusively to the subject nor to the object; its

emergence can only be understood as the chiasm between subject-and-object. This is why the

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phenomenological psychophysical sub-objective event must always consider the experiencing

subject and the object of experience.

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Section V:

Human Science and Alien Human Science9

In the previous section, it was argued that phenomenological psychophysics is an apt

method for investigating the sub-objective event of experience. Examples were given in

satisfaction of Fechner’s (1859/1966) two-part proposal for psychophysics—that is, “inner” and

“outer.” The example of outer psychophysics considered the Weber-Fechner law in detail

(Horst, 2005), and the inner psychophysics considered Prigatano’s (1999a, 1999b)

phenomenological neuropsychology. It was further argued that the placebo effect could be

understood as a phenomenological psychophysical event of experience. As phenomenological

psychophysical events, it was argued that the phenomenon in question has a psychical

(subjective) pole and a physical (objective) pole. However, the event itself is something new

from the antecedent events which are its factors. That is, the phenomenon in question cannot be

completely traced to either subject or object. This is in line with the event as discussed by

Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962) and Whitehead (1933/1967) in the introduction to Part One.

While Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) and Whitehead (1920/2012, 1933/1967) both maintain

that reversibility between the events of experience is possible in principle, it was argued that the

phenomenological psychophysical event can only be understood as a human experience. This is

to say that the psychophysical event of the placebo effect—whose physical constituents can be

investigated empirically and whose psychical constituents can be investigated

9 Sections from this have been prepared for Whitehead and Bowen (2014).

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phenomenologically—can only be considered as a human experience. This is because non-

human entities cannot disclose subjective experience. The present section calls this conclusion

into question, accusing it of a humanist-fallacy. Ian Bogost (2012), following the Object-

oriented Ontology (OOO) of Graham Harman (2002/2006, 2005) argues that one can conduct a

phenomenological investigation of nonhuman subjects. Bogost’s Alien Phenomenology is a

proposal for a non-anthropocentric and nonanthropomorphic phenomenological study of nature.

His argument is that a non-human entity can be understood as a subjective-being-in-relation to

other human or non-human entities. If alien phenomenology proves successful, it could be

argued that Geology and Botany would benefit from psychophysical investigation (that is, the

pan-psychism of Hartshorne, 1977; see Section VI).

In order to test Bogost’s Alien Phenomenology, the psychological area of social media

will be explored. Social media is an appropriate topic because it has been the focus of much

debate between humanistically-minded psychologists and those who advocate a non-

anthropocentric psychology. Social media refers to any technology that mediates human

sociality. Though it was initially developed as a way of enhancing traditional social

connectivity, e.g. by reducing barriers of proximity, there is considerable evidence that its

implementation has shaped more than connectivity itself. Indeed, it has begun to shape its users

(Lanier, 2009; Turkle, 2011/2012). Social media has begun shaping the human subject. It is no

longer human who shape social media; this relationship is reciprocal. As such, social media will

be considered as a non-human subject and it will be investigated by Bogost’s alien

phenomenology. It explores the fabric of social networking as an instance of “embodied

technology”—that is, capable of dynamic interaction with intentional subjects (Mazis, 2008).

Great care has been taken to provide a strong argument for an alien phenomenology of social

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media. Despite an earnest attempt to demonstrate the possibility of an insightful,

nonanthropocentric and nonanthropomorphic method of phenomenological investigation, the

conclusion is that such an endeavor is necessarily anthropocentric, anthropomorphic, and

speculative. The conclusion is that it fails to provide any phenomenological data that is not

human speculation.

Alien Phenomenology: A Speculative Methodology for Realist Inquiry

The method we have chosen for the present investigation is that of alien phenomenology

(Bogost, 2012). Alien phenomenology considers the complicated interrelationships between

objects by focusing on the particular capacities and limitations these objects provide. It is a

method that follows the recent trend in continental philosophy called speculative realism (Bryan,

Srnicek, & Harman, 2011; Harman 2002/2006; Harman 2005). This trend promotes a

sophisticated brand of realism that recognizes the limitations of 19th

century forms of realism

that have been demonstrated by mid-century continental thought (e.g., Heidegger, 1927/1962;

Merleau-Ponty, 1942/1963; Husserl, 1970). Indeed, Speculative realism is that which remains of

realism after having undergone the transformation of phenomenology. This is why the suggested

method is compelling. Its inclusion of phenomenological insights allows for the complicated and

dynamic processes of which objects and subjects are comprised. However, it does so without

presupposing the starting point of the human subject. This is to say that objects might even be

alien with respect to human relations, or that they exceed that which could be accounted for by

human understanding.

In response to the longstanding tradition in continental and logical empirical sciences of

privileging the human perspective, Bogost (2012) asks,

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Why do we give the dead Civil War soldier, the guilty Manhattan project

physicist, the oval-headed alien anthopomorph, and the intelligent celestial race so

much more credence than the scoria cone, the obsidian fragment, the gypsum

crystal, the capsicum pepper, and the propane flame? When we welcome these

things into scholarship, poetry, science, and business, it is only to ask how they

relate to human productivity, culture, and politics. We’ve been living in a tiny

prison of our own devising, one in which all that concerns us are the fleshy beings

that are our kindred and the stuffs with which we stuff ourselves. Culture, cuisine,

experience, expression, politics, polemic: all existence is drawn through the sieve

of humanity, the rich world of things discarded like chaff so thoroughly, so

immediately, so efficiently that we don’t even notice. How did it come to this, an

era in which “things” means ideas so often, and stuff so seldom? (p. 3)

Bogost observes a strong Western tradition of the placement of humans at the center of the

universe in a manner reminiscent of geocentrism. Regarding the review of social media that has

been summarized above, modernist and humanist conceptions equally situate humans in a

position over and above nature—it is as if the latter exists only for the former. Bogost explains,

The scientific process cares less for reality itself than it does for the

discoverability of reality through human ingenuity. Likewise, the humanist

doesn’t believe in the world except as a structure erected in the interest of human

culture. Like a mirror image of the scientist, the humanist mostly seeks to mine

particular forms of culture, often by suggesting aspects of it that must be

overcome through abstract notions of resistance or evolution. “Look at me!” shout

both the scientist and the humanist. “Look what I have uncovered!” (p.14)

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By continuing investigation in this way, all objects maintain a seed of human-likeness. Bogost,

following the dictates of Harmans (2002/2006) object-oriented ontology (OOO), has suggested

alien phenomenology as a method that “puts things at the center of being.” He continues,

We humans are elements, but not the sole elements, of philosophical interest.

OOO contends that nothing has special status, but that everything exists equally—

plumbers, cotton, bonobos, DVD players, and sandstone, for example. In

contemporary thought, things are usually taken either as the aggregation of even

smaller bits (scientific naturalism) or as constructions of human behavior and

society (social relavitivism). OOO steers a path between the two, drawing

attention to things at all scales (from atoms to alpacas, bits to blinis) and

pondering their nature and relations with one another as much as with ourselves.

(p. 6)

Relationships of all sorts take the stage in alien phenomenology. That is, where traditional

phenomenological investigations find the essence of things in their intentional relationship to

consciousness, alien phenomenology expands this stricture to include other things as well. “In

Whitehead’s terms, it is a prehensive capability. In Husserl’s terms, it is noesis divorced of

consciousness, cogitation, intention, and other accidents of human reasoning” (p. 28).

Objects, now considered independently from humans, have what Whitehead (1933/1967)

has termed “real potentiality.” He explains that “[t]he ‘potentiality’ refers to a passive capacity,”

and “the term ‘real’ refers to the creative activity…” (p. 179). An object’s passive capacity—

that of which it is capable, taken together with its creative activity—its present ontological

engagements, comprise its singular being-in-the-world. To investigate objects in their “real

potentiality” requires an analysis of an objects current engagements as well as speculate on its

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potential engagements. Bogost (2012) summarizes that “our job is to get our hands dirty with

grease, juice, gunpowder, and gypsum. Our job is to go where everyone has gone before, but

where few have bothered to linger. …I call this practice alien phenomenology” (p. 34).

Modernist and Humanist Conceptions of Social Media

Computer- and internet-mediated social networks must first be situated within the

modernist and humanist conceptions of nature that have characterized contemporary scientific

practice, a distinction proposed by Merleau-Ponty in his course-notes on Nature (1956-57/2003).

Modernism may be understood as the practice of science indicated in Whitehead (1925/1953,

1929/1978) and Husserl (1931/2002, 1970) which operates within an increasingly limited logical

empirical scope of mechanisticity and material reductionism. Humanism may be understood as

the mid-century response to the increasingly mechanistic modern sensibilities that privilege the

role of the human subject (e.g., Heidegger, 1927/1962; Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962, 1942/1963).

It will be argued that neither of these models is sufficient for understanding the increasingly

complicated role played by social technology in the lives of humans. Modernists maintain that

technology may be used to the benefit of human sociality, and that this influence is uni-

directional; modernists also claim that this is a good thing. Humanists maintain that the

technology has not only shaped human sociality, but has begun to transform the humans

themselves—since this has transformed human being, humanists claim that this is a bad thing.

Both conceptions of the relationship between social technology and its users have placed humans

over and above nature. As such, the possibilities that evolving social technology yields are

passed over.

Modernist view of social media. Viewed as a closed mechanical system, modernists

understand social networking as a specifically human technology that can be used by humans for

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definite, if limited purposes. For example, as a helpful technology, social networking can be

understood as an extension of one’s social “surface area” (appropriately borrowed from the

world of geometry) for enhanced sociality. Given modernist assumptions, the differences

between persons who are plugged into social media and those who are not may be limited to

terms of social surface-area: the former enjoys one that is far more broad and connected. Turkle

(2011/2012) observes that her colleagues in the Department of Computer Science regard social

networking in this capacity. However, it should be noted that Turkle, an avowed humanist, does

not share their enthusiasm with social media.

The modernist assumptions regarding the equipmental use of social-technology will be

neglected at present. This will be done for three primary reasons: first, modernism defends a

realist ontology which the humanists in principle deny, so the forthcoming discussion of the

latter requires a comparison to the former; second, the methods that will be used for the present

project are offered as complements to human science, founded on mid-century continental

philosophy which denounces realism, so its critique is well-known to the intended audience; and

third, the proposed methodology will bring back relics of modernist realism—namely, a

consideration of the objects-in-themselves. These three reasons make a preliminary review of

modernist assumptions superfluous.

Humanist view of social media. The humanists refuse to allow the modernists such a

clean uni-directional relationship between social media and its users. The former is not merely an

additive to the latter. Instead, there is a far more sophisticated reciprocal relationship between

social media and its user—the latter shapes the former and the former, the latter. Given the

consequences of the bi-directional relationship between humans and cybertechnology, humanists

wring their hands with indignation at the inhumanity thus wrought. Here Turkle (2011/2012) is

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found waving the caution-flag as society begins to transition away from primary, human

interaction and towards secondary, computer-mediated interaction. She maintains that the latter

is in principle an impoverished form of the former. Lanier (2009) similarly decries the slow but

noticeable shift away from personal relationships. He observes that individuals and their

relationships have been transformed by arbitrary social media program-design, and that this is a

problem. In his analysis, Lanier combines phenomenology with his professional interest in

virtual reality in order to demonstrate precisely how these transformations come about. In sum,

humanists understand a sophisticated bi-directional relationship between social media and the

humans that use them. Given their principled veneration of humanity, humanists are

understandably mortified by the slow “dehumanization” at work.

Turkle (2011/2012) nicely summarizes the deficiency of a modernist conception of social

media by demonstrating the sophisticated relationship between technology and its user:

While my computer science colleagues were immersed in getting computers to do

ingenious things, I had other concerns. How were computers changing us as

people? My colleagues often objected, insisting that computers were “just tools.”

But I was certain that the “just” in that sentence was deceiving. We are shaped by

our tools. And now, the computer, a machine on the border of becoming a mind,

was changing and shaping us. (p. x)

Consistent with the modernist conception of nature, Turkle’s colleagues at MIT assume that

technology may be created, shaped, and transformed by humans and in service to humans. For

the modernist, the sky is the limit for what technology might be able to do for humans. But

Turkle observes that the relationship between technology and human is not so simple, and that it

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is certainly not uni-directional. Indeed, technology is not the only participant in the relationship

that is undergoing change—humans are changing too. She writes,

Technology presents itself as a one-way street; we are likely to dismiss

discontents about its direction because we read them as growing out of nostalgia

or a Luddite impulse or as simply in vain. But when we ask what it is we’ll

“miss,” we may discover what we care about, what we believe to be worth

protecting. We prepare ourselves not necessarily to reject technology but to shape

it in ways that honor what we hold dear. … We make our technologies, and they,

in turn, shape us. So, of every technology we must ask, Does it serve our human

purposes?—a question that causes us to reconsider what these purposes are.

Technologies, in every generation, present opportunities to reflect on our values

and direction. (p. 19)

By demonstrating a reciprocal relationship between humans and technologies, the humanist

conception of nature already far exceeds the complexity of the modernist model. Technology

does not serve a limited purpose, but participates in the transformation of the human-technology

relationship. This sophisticated system of interconnection recognizes a new and more expanded

range of possibility. Her concluding question as to the usefulness of technology for specifically

human purposes will be taken up later.

Modernism and humanism both place humans outside of nature. Each of these

conceptions of nature—modernist and humanist—have managed to place the human outside of

nature. This can be demonstrated by the ways in which social technology has been positioned.

The modernist view maintains social media is a useful tool with definite, albeit limited

advantages. This tool can be used to extend one’s sociality: expanding the network of

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individuals with which one can socially engage, cross-referencing individuals in order to identify

particularly appealing personality traits, or eliminating proximity constraints from social

interaction. In each of these cases, humans benefit by manipulating certain factors, or employing

certain tools in order to improve social conditions. These tools otherwise remain inert and

benign. Through corrections to existing social technology and the production of newer forms,

modernists anticipate a steady improvement of human-access to this sociality-thing through time.

One finds that humans and sociality have been ontologically divided and it is the humans who

are doing the active manipulating. That humans socialize might be considered natural, but

modernists place humans over and above this natural process by the assumption that sociality can

be controllably manipulated.

Like the modernists, humanists might view sociality as a natural process. The humanists

seem to view social media as a secondary better-than-nothing good. Turkle (2011/2012)

explains this position when she writes how “[o]nline connections were first conceived as a

substitute for face-to-face contact when the latter was for some reason impractical” (p. 13). That

is, the human interaction mediated by shared physical proximity is the best; skipping to the

introduction of social technology, video-conferencing, which combines the sound and sight of

the real thing, might be next; this would be followed by telephone; and again by texts and

emails, etc. Here one finds a hierarchy of social-connectivity which places the un-

technologically-mediated human-human interaction at the top. Since I cannot reasonably meet

face to face with my sister who lives 2,000 miles away, I can opt for the next-best thing and call

her for free with Skype which allows nearly-real-time video-talking. This latter option would

only be appropriate provided the former was inconceivable. Indeed, something is better than

nothing. As such, humanists cautiously condone the use of social technology, always quick to

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remind its users that it is an impoverished form of the real thing. By suggesting that the social

interactions mediated by technology necessarily limit an otherwise natural process, humanists

not only place technology outside of nature, but also find these events to be in opposition. While

humanists might count themselves among the ranks of nature, anthropocentric privileging

suggests that humans stand over and above nature. Like technology, humanists view nature as

something for them, and not merely something of which they are a part.

Towards a Conciliated Conception of Social Technology: Expanded Subjectivity and

Embodied Intelligence

Concerning the present discussion, human-human social events represent just one among

many types of social events, and more broadly, social events represent just one among many

types of events. By considering the discrete mechanisms of media programs in terms of their

capacity for embodied and situated engagement with their surrounding, modernists may bear

witness to and even participate in nature’s evolution in its social-technological iteration. For

example, the created programs—due to programmer undersight or oversight—might begin to

complete tasks they had not been designed to complete, or complete them in a nonhuman manner

which opens up new possibilities. However, to say that modernists might thus expedite nature’s

evolution would be to fall out of nature’s conciliation. By suspending the privileging of human-

human social interaction over other, allegedly deficient and impoverished forms, humanists find

that different or alternative modes of social interaction have different and alternative capacities

that are no less or more real. However, to say that humans become the sole beneficiary of social

evolution misses out on the benefits shared by tracking cookies, firmware, and birthday

notifications. Considered in their investigation of conciliated nature, modernists and

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humanists—traditionally opposed—may be found mutually benefiting from alternative

(post)human science methodologies.

Expanding the notions of subjectivity, intelligence. To oversimplify the ontological

presuppositions of the previously mentioned conceptions of nature, the modernist begins with

objects while the humanist begins with subjects. Modern philosophy and its scientific practices

followed Parmenides in the assumption that nature is a static entity, available to investigation.

As a result, all dynamic processes were dropped from investigation. This is most evident in the

edicts of the Vienna Circle which effectively eliminated “phenomenal” as a valid subject matter

for the logical empirical scientist (Polkinghorne, 1982). In what amounts to a response to the

preoccupation with objectivist epistemologies, humanist philosophy (e.g., mid-century

continental philosophy; Heidegger, 1927/1962; Merleau-Ponty 1942/1963; and Husserl 1970)

and its scientific practices began to follow Heraclitus in the assumption that Nature is a dynamic

process in which subjects and objects co-participate. The strong suggestion across these

complicated dynamic interrelationships is that they may be explored only though the human

subject—hence Merleau-Ponty’s (1956-57/2003) assignment of the term “humanist” to designate

this dynamic assumption about Nature. Once more in simplified form, the modernist begins with

objects while the humanist begins with subjects. Since the present discussion concerning social

technology has shown that each of these conceptions of Nature put humans outside of the

human-technology relationship, the present notions of subject and object must be expanded.

This will allow these notions to be equally applicable to both technology and its user.

Expanding subjectivity to include technology. In modernist thought, subjectivity has

been interpreted as the bogeyman through which error is introduced to experimentation; in

humanist thought, subjectivity is understood as the single vehicle of experience and thus enjoys a

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monopoly on ontological validity. By expanding the concept of subjectivity, the goal is not to

unify the modernist and humanist claims. Though two, these constitutive parts fold into one-

another and overlap in what Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) has called flesh. This overlapping

between subject and object results in an intertwining such that the continued discussion of

separation becomes increasingly impossible. Understood as flesh, subjects and objects are

understood as distinct, but they overlap to such a degree that one eventually has trouble deciding

to which side of the duality each part belongs. Indeed, it soon becomes understandable to speak

of the subjectivity of objects, and the objectivity of subjects. Whitehead (1929/1978; 1933/1967)

has introduced the term prehension to describe the mutuality of subject-object relating in a way

that privileges neither. This expands the population to whom subjectivity and consciousness

applies. Subjectivity begins to leave behind the traditional (human) subject; consciousness

begins to leave behind the traditionally conscious (human). For example, Merleau-Ponty

(1964/1968) has proposed that consciousness need not be limited to a human totality, but may be

understood as emanating from appendages or even tissue. Moreover, the question of objective or

subjective identity must be raised. In expanding the notions of subjectivity, objectivity,

consciousness, and sentience, it can be argued that the once exclusively human subject expands

to include nature in its many manifestations. This will be followed by an emphasis on the

technological or machinic body. Merleau-Ponty’s (1945/1962) notion of embodied

consciousness has been applied to technological design in was has been called embodied

intelligence; this has allowed for a dynamic and reciprocal relationship between machine and its

environmental surrounding (Mazis, 2008).

The technological subject. Despite earnest efforts to highlight the de-humanization

wrought at the hands of evolving social technology, Turkle (2011/2012) provides much evidence

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for the exciting new possibilities for posthuman subjectivity. For example, Turkle explains how

singular individuality, typically reserved for human persons, is now being extended to robotic

persons.

In the late 1970s, computers, objects on the boundary between animate and

inanimate, began to lead children to gleeful experiments in which they crashed

machines as they talked about “killing” them. And then, there would be elaborate

rituals of resuscitation as children talked about bringing machines back to life.

After these dramatic rebirths, the machines were, in the eyes of children, what

they had been before. Twenty years later, when Tamagotchis [electronic children]

die and are reset for a new life, children do not feel that they come back as they

were before. Children looked forward to rebirth of the computers they had

crashed, but they dread the demise and rebirth of Tamagotchis. These provoke

genuine remorse because, as one nine-year-old puts it, “It didn’t have to happen. I

could have taken better care.” (p. 32)

Over the period of about twenty years, robots and computer programs have been increasingly

characterized as having the kinds of interpersonal, emotional, and existential boundaries

typically reserved for humans. An experience which Turkle has not denied herself: “I did not

anticipate how bad I would feel when [my Tamagotchi] died. I immediately hit the reset button.

Somewhat to my surprise, I had no desire to take care of the new infant Tamagotchi that

appeared on my screen” (p. 33). Despite this experience, Turkle maintains that “[t]he

attachments I describe do not follow from whether computational objects really have emotion or

intelligence, because they do not” (p. 20). Regardless of the blurring line between human

subjects and technological subjects, Turkle has drawn a line that forever separates the two.

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Consider instead what happens when one is not obliged to draw this line. Indeed the unique

individuality of robots and computer programs is becoming increasingly simple to imagine. For

example, Turkle writes,

Computers no longer wait for humans to project meaning onto them. Now,

sociable robots meet our gaze, speak to us, and learn to recognize us. They ask us

to take care of them; in response, we imagine that they might care for us in return.

… Microsoft demonstrates a virtual human, Milo, that recognizes the people it

interacts with and whose personality is sculpted by them. (p. 2)

Here one finds the description of a dynamic personality that is capable of ‘impersonating’ the

implicit human social contracts of eye-contact, conversation, and recognition. To be sure, Milo’s

interlocutor might well accuse Milo of disingenuousness—but even this does nothing to

distinguish Milo’s engagement with a great majority of conversations that take place in coffee-

shops, elevators, and even dinner tables. Traditionally human conversations have been

increasingly shaped by the restrictions imposed by social technology (Lanier, 2009). Indeed, it is

not just Milo who is more closely approximating the conversational capacity of humans, but

humans that are also adapting to the conversational capacity of programs like Milo. If these

evolutionary lines continue, they might even pass by one another such that robots begin to seem

more real than the humans they impersonate—a possibility that has already begun haunting

museums, zoos, and theme-parks. Turkle describes the scene in Disney World in 1998:

When Animal Kingdom opened in Orlando, populated by “real”—that is,

biological—animals, its first visitors complained that they were not as “realistic”

as the animatronic creatures in other parts of Disneyworld. The robotic crocodiles

slapped their tails and rolled their eyes—in sum, they displayed archetypal

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“crocodile” behavior. The biological crocodiles… pretty much kept to

themselves. (p. 4)

While this kind of intersection between notions of “real” and “artificial” contributes to Turkle’s

distress about the deterioration of human social expectations, it might also be viewed as an

exciting expansion to the scope of life. Indeed, exciting examples of the expanding possibilities

with technology and sociality such as this litter Turkle’s analysis. Such examples demonstrate

the evolution of artificial intelligence, robotics, and technology that has taken place over the last

several decades. This evolution has included the shift from artificial intelligence as a closed

system of interconnected by lifeless parts, to embodied intelligence as a dynamic and situated

interaction within an environmental surround.

Phenomenology and embodied technology. In order to recognize the interrelationship

between humans and technology—unified above through an expanded notion of subjectivity

supplied by Merleau-Ponty’s flesh—the latter must first be freed from 19th

century modernist

laws of mechanisticity. “We think of matter as inert, as dumb, as senseless, and as self-

contained. Yet what a strange predicament for a material being to fall into—to become closed off

to the ongoing communication with other material beings!” (Mazis, 2008, p. 17). The 20th

century has freed the subject from the ontological abyss of 19th

century objectivity, yet objects

have been left at the level of lifeless, inert, and senseless matter. That is, subjects are free to

engage the world in its multiplicity through reciprocal, mutually constitutional becomings.

Objects, however, remain where they were last put. Mazis (2008) uses phenomenology,

primarily that of Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962; 1964/1968), to argue that objects have always

participated in the dynamic forms of being—transformed by and transforming the world into

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which they are embedded. While this has always been the case, it has become increasingly

apparent through the impressive evolution of technology. He explains,

More and more, we write, think, and dream at screens of computers like the one I

am sitting at to write this book. However, it is not only that we are surrounded by

machines. These beings we created seem to be crowding us out and transforming

our world in ways that are unsettling, thrilling, and puzzling. More and more, it is

our growing sense that they have become the very means whereby we can

maintain ourselves as who we are that is so unnerving, yet we tend to keep this

anxiety hidden. We created machines and now they create us, or at least they

shape us in ways to which we are too accustomed to relinquish. (p. 1)

Like Rosen (2008) and Leclerc (1977), Mazis (2008) maintains that the continued

assumption that matter is uninvolved with its surroundings may be understood as carry-over

from 19th

century natural science. Mazis explains that it is this “dualistic, reflective perspective

on bodies and materiality” that “short-circuit[s] attempts to think through the possible creative

interpretations of the intertwining of human, animal, and machine” (pp. 14-15). This perspective

has been powerfully challenged at the hands of phenomenology, yet this development has been

limited to the being of humans. Human being is found engaged in reciprocal relationship to its

surround—constituting its milieu and constituted by it. This engagement is mediated by the

human body—Merleau-Ponty’s “sensible sentient” (1964/1968). Thus human being,

intelligence, ethics, etc., always come about by way of embodiment. This rhythmic, meaningful

engagement is what makes humans more than 19th century mechanisms. Mazis (2008)

demonstrates what happens when this logic is used to differentiate humans from machines.

“Surely this is what makes the machine a ‘mere object’—it has no relationship to its

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environment. Yet in our current era, machines are transforming and entering a more mature age

of their development” (p. 49). Recognizing the role of embodiment in human intelligence meant

challenging Descartes’ notion that rationality and intelligence exists independently of a body. It

wasn’t until this recognition was extended to machines that the latter were able to engage

meaningfully and dynamically with the environment in a way that more closely resembles what

is understood as human intelligence. Mazis explains:

To replicate human intelligence, it was realized, meant being able to find the ways

that embodiment as a fluid state of interaction with the environment and the

events within it transformed the body’s grasp on its surroundings. Stability was

achieved gradually and through changes in the relationship to those corresponding

changes in the surround. What was fathomed by M.I.T. Scientists in a parallel

insight to Merleau-Ponty’s is that the heart of human thought is the way humans

take up the world through the body and learn the way through space and about

things within space through the varied rhythms and unfolding of embodied

interactions. This shift in artificial intelligence research and robots moves away

from the logic-centered principles of cognitive science toward an approach called

“embodied intelligence.” Philosophically, it means that computer scientists are

making the same turn away from the Cartesian idea that humans are basically

disembodied intelligences merely using a body as a vessel and tool, to seeing that

as embodied beings, humans distinctively “take in” and understand their world….

This is not to claim that intelligence as cognition, abstraction, and logical ordering

is not incredibly powerful, but only to say that it takes place after the organism

already has taken in the “lay of the land” in a certain context, and that this initial

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“taking in” of relatedness, directness, and connection is both significant and an

achievement in its own right. (p. 51)

Mazis observes the transformations that occurred in artificial intelligence and robotics that

followed the implementation of embodiment. As embodied technology, machines no longer

passively react with preprogrammed responses to particular stimuli, but are free to interact

along-with stimuli. By emphasizing the role of the body, what emerges is a dialogical

relationship with the surrounding environment.

The body provides a primary understanding of the world that is fundamental to

other kinds of knowing, such as intellection, which only take place on the basis it

provides through a relationship with the environment and a perception of the

embodied self in this interaction. … The idea is that robotic intelligence would

develop in experiencing the world in analogous ways to the way we build up the

capability for intelligent thought from the perceptual, kinesthetic basis that

Merleau-Ponty had articulated decades before as our primary level of

understanding the world—a “motor intelligence” in dialogue with the world. (p.

53)

This dynamic and reciprocal embodied interaction with the environment is precisely what

had been lacking in the development of artificial intelligence and machines in the 1980s. Deep

Blue was a chess-playing computer program that was successful in defeating the World

Champion. As a program, Deep Blue was capable of instantly calculating the probabilities of

move selections across all available game scenarios. It existed as a complicated aggregate of

unembodied yet perfectly rational propositions; Deep Blue was Descartes, self-actualized.

Despite the ability to create a glorified rationalist philosopher, technologists and robotics-

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engineers had not yet been able to design a machine that was capable of buttering a piece of

bread. Its computation brilliance was overshadowed by its profound limitations.

The abstract logical knowledge of the rules of chess so masterfully programmed

into Deep Blue—although “an incredible engineering and software

development”—became apparent to those observing the match as “so limited in

its capabilities and so useless for everything but chess, they lost respect for it.

Whereas buttering bread, which is an action that for someone like Descartes or

other traditional rationalist philosophers seems meaningless and mechanical,

actually if attended to carefully makes apparent that we live in relation to the

world of qualities around us in such a way that in perceiving the subtle qualities

of these objects we learn a varied and subtle sense of ourselves. “Having a feel”

for the things around us, their qualities, and how we might relate to them

productively is already a significant understanding—the body’s kind of

understanding taken for granted for centuries of Western thought. (p. 52)

Embodied interaction with an environmental surrounding is a sophisticated form of

intelligence which exceeds any quantity of rationalistic bits of information. Instead of looking

for subjectivity or intelligence in an abstracted space of rationalistic form, these may be found

within embodied interactions. This is to say that subjectivity and intelligence are not ideal

forms; nor is it to say they are physical forms. Subjectivity and intelligence are demonstrated

between entities through meaningfully engaged embodied interaction. Embodiment is the

appropriate metaphor for advancing beyond the 19th

century modernist notions of intelligence,

and this must now be extended to objects (machines) as well.

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Traditionally, philosophers have thought of words, language, and writing as

emanations of the human mind, but now many in differing fields realize that we

should start thinking of how the materiality of language, words, writing, books,

and a host of more literal information and perceptually related machines comprise

the ways we think through our surround and the ways in which the surround

comes to shape the way we think in the process. (p. 74)

The body of computational technology. It has been argued above that traditionally

mental processes are always mediated by the body. This is to say that emotion, intelligence,

subjectivity, and memory are each embodied processes. As embodied processes, these mental

events are always situated and engaged with the environmental surrounding. So too with the

world of computing, all computations are embodied within some form of mechanism. This can

be difficult to remember with the present emphasis on distributed computing. No matter how

abstract a computational process gets, there are material parts and assemblages of parts that are

engaged in particular configurations that allow the process to take place. For example, users

might engage a virtual machine that stores data on "the Cloud," but even this is under-girded by

the processing of a physical machine (or many of them!). Distributed computation is a special

case, existing across multiple bodies. A program that is written appropriately can expand and

contract from one machine to a many. It is all the while still bound to the pole of having at least

one "body," and its functionality is defined by the number of bodies it possesses. SETI@home is

one of the hallmark examples of this concept. SETI@home uses distributed computing to sift

through data produced by the Search for Extra-terrestial Intelligence program on a volunteer

basis.

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As one might expect, different bodies elicit different possibilities. Computers are not

merely generic and universally capable machines. While generic models exist within and across

computer manufacturers, there are myriad points of potential transformation. Indeed, specialty

hardware exists that can expand and contract the generic capabilities along various dimensions.

For example, BitCoin "mining" machines, calculators, hardcore graphic processing machines,

and an assortment of on-board computers one finds in cars or the Space Shuttle. It's a trope to

say the Space Shuttle had as little processing power as a modern hand-held calculator; true, but

my desktop computer still doesn't have the capacity to land a Space Shuttle! The Space Shuttle is

a computer mechanism that could land the Space Shuttle with the only human assistance being

that required to turn the mechanism on! And this was with 1970s technology –something that we

would consider antiquated beyond usefulness in most generic senses.

Not unlike human phenomenology, there is nothing that can be said about the design and

practice of computers that will not have an exception to it somewhere—save embodiment, which

forms the nucleus of what computing must be.

The interrelations of embodied technology: The conventional computational system.

The internal construction of your typical computer comprises multiple systems, interrelated but

existing in hierarchical order. This can be understood as crudely analogous to human thought.

As the computer moves from the raw environment to human interaction, there is a system of

abstraction grounded by physical mechanism. As an analogy to human consciousness: though

we affirm and value the reality of thought, we still understand it to be an emergent process that

co-occurs with physiological processes.

Consider a "generic" computer, such as a desktop PC. One begins with the hardware,

which is the physical embodiment of computation. Built upon the hardware is the Basic Input-

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Output System (BIOS). To continue the human analogy, BIOS is the autonomic functions of the

hardware. BIOS allows hardware to "think" in a limited capacity, not with any intrinsic goal-

oriented process but to build upon and support it. Built upon BIOS is the Operating System.

Windows is the most common example of an operating system. The operating system functions

as our bridge between the computer's "autonomic" processes and the move toward goal-driven

processes. The operating system is the first layer of computation that we see, and for most users

is the "lowest" or most primal. The operating system exists entirely as a level of abstraction.

Neither the BIOS nor the operating system provide the goal of the entire integrated system.

When we arrive at the program, broadly defined, we finally arrive at a goal-directed

process. Programs exist to produce a goal, some very broad (Internet Explorer) and some very

specific (Windows Calculator). It is the domain of programs that we think of when we think

naively about a computer's functioning and utility. From there we continue to climb the ladder

of abstraction and increasingly-goal-oriented behavior based on the virtues of the program.

Internet Explorer leads to Facebook which leads to the “Like” button.

The Like button, and programmatic objects like it, exemplify the highest level of

computational thought. Here we see an interesting reversal: where everything up to this point

has been to support goal-oriented behavior, the highest expression of computational thought

defines goals. That is to say, the Like button does not merely allow a user to like something in a

holistic fashion, but defines the very possibility of having liked something. Insofar as the

computational behavior defines and affects human behavior, the limits of the computation affects

the limits of the expression. One may only Like Facebook comments because the function a

priori exists as a form of expression. The Like function is ready-to-hand, and all other possible

functions which do not exist can only be present-at-hand.

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In software terms we tend to think of things closer to the Human as "higher" and closer to

the hardware as "lower." Programmers use what can be called a high-level scripting language—

which means it operates at levels of abstraction removed from dealing with the hardware and

closer to human intelligibility and interaction. Ultimately, what we can be accused of is not

merely an anthropomorphism, which we have indulged relentlessly in this description, but also

an anthropocentrism. We understand the object by its likeness to the human, and we value it

based on its functionality for humans.

Computer programs and nature. While we're trying to avoid anthropocentrism, consider

how computers mimic nature. This is to say that computers have been constructed within nature.

Computation is "of nature" and we can see nature reflected in the process of computation. That

isn't to say there's a 1:1 correlation between biologically driven thought and computation, I'd

even argue against that. Maintaining that computation is “of nature” amounts to the position that

there are structural rules that apply to both. Embodiment is an enormous one

phenomenologically. In a bizarre way one could attribute to computers selection pressure and

specialization. The hierarchy of programs could be seen as vaguely influenced by the structure

of thought.

While anthropomorphism is something of a sin in this line of thought, there is something

to be said of the mimicry of nature by the strict constituent of being a part of nature.

Computation is an embodied process that exists in nature, rather than a science-fiction virtuality.

Thus, it will by that principle alone mimic the nature of which it is a part. The hitch here is the

actor. Life appears to act out of its own concern whereas the "humanity" of the machine is one

that is given to it.

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In light of this we come to an uneasy stopping point regarding alien phenomenology.

Our understanding of computation, all its ugly anthropomorphizing warts included, is rested in

the human as actor. Without which, though the computer has a fascinating and complex

functionality, it does not have an independent ontological status. The Like button defines human

interaction only insofar as humans choose to interact with it.

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Section VI:

Object-oriented Psychology

This section has been written in an earnest commitment to Whitehead’s edicts for

metaphysics. This requires that one push the envelope regarding the implications of a given

science—e.g., psychology. In order to understand the boundaries of psychology, Whitehead

maintains that it must be applied in diverse and nontraditional ways. That is, in order to

understand the importance that psychology might have for the world of physics, for example, it

must be applied to the world of physics to see what utility psychology has for the study of

physics. Stapp (2011, 2013) provides one such Whiteheadian application of a Jamesian

(1890/2007) psychology within the field of quantum physics. The present section considers the

merit of a psychology that does not include the human—that is, a nonanthropocentric

psychology. Since Harman’s Object-oriented Ontology proposes a similar project for the

philosophical tradition of phenomenology, the similarly metaphysically speculative proposal for

psychology will be called Object-oriented Psychology (OOP).

The proposal for OOP will begin with a theoretical defense based in Whitehead’s process

philosophy supplied by Hartshorne (1977) and Griffin (1977). Both follow Whitehead’s

(1929/1978, 1933/1967) suggestion that the mind/body problem is really no problem at all since

every entity is in part psychical and in part physical—though they might vary by degree. Thus,

there is no need for an argument as to how a psychical entity can have an effect on a physical

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entity since every actual entity comprises both elements. Hartshorne describes this through his

commitment to panpsychism. He argues that knowledge of human psychology—for example,

the emotions of depression or excitement—can be insightfully applied to botany or geology.

Griffin provides more of a logical proof for an OOP which follows from Whiteheadian process.

The theoretical proposals for OOP are followed by the theoretical defense for an Object-oriented

Ontology supplied by Harman (2002/2006; 2006). Following Heidegger’s (1927/1962) analysis

of equipmentality, Harman makes a phenomenological argument for a non-anthropomorphic

world of objects. This differs considerably from Section II which defined psychological objects

as “objects of experience”—that is, objects as they are engaged by human subjects. Harman’s

objects are understood through their many-sidedness—the side which is available to sense-

perception is merely one side. Thus, a psychology of objects must do more to investigate the

ontological breadth of objects. Between the arguments presented by Whitehead, Hartshorne,

Griffin, and Harman, it is not evident that OOP provides anything beyond metaphysical

speculation which necessarily errs on the side of anthropomorphism (that is, assuming, like

Hartshorne, that objects must emote in a manner similar to humans). In any case, the discussion

can only proceed from an anthropocentric agenda—questions being asked and studied by humans

and for humans.

Whitehead’s Mandate for Metaphysics: Applying the Principles of Psychology Elsewhere

It is evident from the literature review that Whitehead is well-known for his courage,

wonder, creativity, and boldness (Shaviro, 2012; Stengers, 2012; Stenner, 2008; Weiss, 1980). It

comes as little surprise that his insights for the discipline of psychology would follow a similar

trajectory of unthinkable boldness and novelty. Indeed, a psychology of objects or OOP

certainly tests the methodological temper of contemporary psychologists as this seems scarcely

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conceivable. But it also follows directly from his process philosophy. Whitehead (1920/2012,

1933/1967) has been used to demonstrate the psychophysical sub-objective event of experience.

Rather than separating subject from object in the event of perception, Whitehead maintains that

these two indivisibly comprise the actual occasion. Following the parameters of the early project

of psychology, the discussion thus far has been limited to the sub-objective event of experience.

At present we will drop the role of the human in the event of experience. For its present

consideration, an object does not need to be entertained by a human subject in order for the

former to be psychological in nature. In order for an object to be available to psychological

experience, it needs to be in part psychological. Griffin (1977) explains:

Whitehead holds that there is only one kind of actuality. All actual entities, even

non-living ones, are ‘organisms.’ Inorganic, living, and conscious organisms are

only different in degree, not in kind. Hence, the insoluble problem of all dualisms,

understanding how two totally different kinds of actualities can causally interact,

is avoided. To affirm that living things emerged out of non-living ones, and that

conscious beings emerged out of non-conscious ones, is not to affirm that the

lower beings or processes produced something totally different from themselves.

(Griffin, 1977, p. 133)

In order for an object to contribute to experience as an object of experience, the object must itself

be capable of psychological experience; objects of experience must be psychological in nature

and not simply available to the psychological experience of a particular experiencing (human)

subject. If psychology is useful in understanding the interaction between humans and objects,

then by extension it must also be useful in understanding the interaction between objects and

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objects. This recognizes the constituents of psychics and physics in the undivided fabric of

nature. Whitehead (1933/1967) explains:

But any doctrine which refuses to place human experience outside nature, must

find in descriptions of human experience factors which also enter into the

descriptions of less specialized natural occurrences. If there be no such factors,

then the doctrine of human experience as a fact within nature is mere bluff,

founded upon vague phrases whose sole merit is a comforting familiarity. We

should either admit dualism, at least as a provisional doctrine, or we should point

out the identical elements connecting human experience with physical science. (p.

185)

This de-anthropomorphization of objects is precisely the kind of daring that Whitehead

(1929/1978) advocates in the practice of metaphysics. Griffin (1977) describes the responsibility

of any metaphysician or scientist as Whitehead sees it:

The method of metaphysics is to begin with factors based upon one topic of

human interest, such as physics or psychology, imaginatively to generalize those

factors in such a way that they might apply to all fields of interest, and then to test

these generalizations by trying to apply them to the facts in these other fields. “In

default of such extended application, a generalization started from physics, for

example, remains merely an alternative expression of notions applicable to

physics” (1929/1978, p. 8). Insofar as the application fails in other fields, the

generalizations need to be reformed, and then tested again. (p. 122)

According to Griffin, it is the responsibility of the discipline of psychology to imaginatively

generalize the factors of psychology to associated fields of interest to see what works and what

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does not. It is fitting that the present section aims at an application of psychology which seems

counterintuitive—the psychology of things absent humans. It also follows from this that an

unsuccessful proposal of OOP does not mean that no such application is possible. Instead, it

means that a successful OOP has not yet been formulated.

Griffin suggests a possible starting for an OOP for which Hartshorne may be found

providing a few examples. The psychologist must first begin with that which is most familiar—

namely, the psychology of human persons.

If human experience is genuinely a part of nature, and if there be only one type of

actual entity within nature …, then, since it is that part of nature one knows most

intimately, it provides the best starting point for finding principles that can be

generalized to all actual entities. (p. 124)

Hartshorne explains the consequences of undergoing such an investigation, also emphasizing the

argument against dualism:

Either the additional concepts of psychics are ultimately relevant to the whole of

nature, or they are not. If they are not relevant, then mere behavior, as causally

conditioned spatio-temporal changes and nothing more, is the only universal

principle, and what we learn by studying animals adds nothing (beyond unusual

complexity or subtlety) to our concept of reality in general. At most, such study so

interpreted shows us that one corner of nature is in some respects absolutely

peculiar, revealing the introduction of unprecedented forms of reality to to be

explained by anything found in the rest of nature. This hard dualism appeals to

few scientists; so we need not be surprised that there is a tendency to insist that

the additional psychical concepts are mere complications, or mere ‘emergent

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properties,’ which should not influence our basic conceptions of reality or

knowledge. (pp. 89-90)

It could entirely be the case that the application of psychological principles to the study of plants

demonstrates the lack of insight that psychology has for botany; but it could also be the case that

psychology might open up a peculiar and unprecedented botanical world. Watson (1930/1962)

can be found doing the same thing in an attempt to develop the fledgling scientific discipline of

psychology. He applied the principles of mechanism to human behavior with some exorbitantly

optimistic expectations. Classical conditioning was advertised as a replacement to parenting,

teaching, training, and counseling. After several decades of tests and developments, its

effectiveness had fallen short of its original expectations. But Watson exemplifies the courage,

daring, and boldness for which Whitehead is well known.

Roadblocks to object-oriented psychology. An obvious problem for a psychology of

things is anthropomorphism. Psychology is a discipline that has been developed by humans for

humans. The emphasis of psychological science is human experience, a detail which has been

labored over throughout the present project. Moreover, the theoretical defense of an OOP has

been by way of generalizing human experience to the experience of things. This makes OOP

anthropomorphic by nature. Watson’s mechanomorphic conception of humans was used as an

example of generalizing one field of inquiry to another. This suggests that the

anthropomorphism of objects might actually be called for when following Whitehead’s

metaphysical edicts. Indeed, the goal might be understood as the insights to be gained by

anthropomorphizing objects. Thus, an OOP may be proposed and tested, but this cannot be done

without anthropomorphizing objects. This means that it fails the aspirations of the project of

posthumanism which aim at a conception of nature which decenters the human (Wolfe, 2009).

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Anthropomorphism is not the only problem which plagues the establishment of OOP.

OOP must also necessarily be speculative in nature. Watson’s mechanimorphization of humans

(and animals) breaks down because there are tendencies in humans and animals which cannot be

explained by a philosophy of mechanism. This has been explored at length in the Literature

Review. The phenomenological psychophysical sub-objective event has been proposed as an

alternative to a mechanized rendering of human experience, but this is only possible because

humans are both sentient and sensible (Merleau-Ponty, 1964/1968). Thus, the errors of a

mechanical model of experience can be explored psychophysically in humans. OOP proposes an

investigation which cannot be successfully carried out; it aims at understanding the anomalies

that can only be understood by way of the sub-objective event (like the human experience of the

Weber-Fechner Law or the Placebo Effect, Section IV), but doing so in objects. Humans are

capable of being measured objectively and subjectively. Objects may only be measured

objectively; their subjective experience—which is already an anthropomorphism—is

inaccessible. Thus, an OOP is necessarily speculative. Hartshorne (1977) demonstrates this

point:

We know what it is like to be a person studying rocks or molecules, in a sense in

which we do not know what it is like to be a rock or a molecule. … But, with a

rock, all that we seem to have are our human perceptions of it, these perceptions

being how the rock influences our psychophysical being under certain conditions.

We know the rock ‘from the outside,’ ourselves ‘from the inside.’ We know

animality by being an animal; we do not know inanimate nature by being

inanimate. (p. 90)

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This is an important concession, but it does not necessarily mean that such a program is without

merit. It could entirely be the case that it is time for a recrudescence of speculative metaphysics.

Hartshorne speculates the possible merit of an OOP when he writes about how psychics may be

explored in vegetation and geology:

Just as physics generalizes variables of movement so that they can apply not only

to a human hunter and his fleeing prey, but also to stars, planets, atoms, and

photons, so psychics needs to generalize such ideas as feeling, perceiving,

remembering, anticipating, intending, liking, and disliking, so that they can apply

not only to animals, but even to the real individual constituents of the vegetable

and mineral portions of nature. (p. 90)

And continues, asking the questions that will lay the foundation for any researcher interested in

OOP:

Modern botany accepts the cell theory of living things. All living things that we

can see without a microscope consist of many far smaller living things that we

cannot see, each of which is an organized individual. Is there a psychology of

single cells? They do react to stimuli, and they do organize their internal activities

remarkably well. This is most obvious in single-celled animals and plants, but I

believe it is a reasonable assumption in all cells. It follows that, even if it is right

(and some dispute this) to deny feeling or sensation to a tree or flowering plant,

still the cells of which trees or plants consist may feel, may enjoy their activities.

In that case, mind in some form may pervade the entire kingdom of living things.

I take this view… (p. 91)

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The latter half of this quote demonstrates Hartshorne’s pan-psychism. This follows from the

argument that lines cannot be drawn which separate nature into mutually exclusive orders—e.g.,

living nature cannot be separated from nonliving nature because parts of the living are lifeless

and vice versa (Section II). Hartshorne applies the same reasoning to the parts of human

anatomy. If it hurts when one feels sad, then by extension one could maintain that one’s finger is

sad after closing it in a car-door.

Take the case of pain. We have this feeling if certain cells of ours undergo

damage. But if the cells have their own feelings, they can hardly enjoy being

damaged. So what is our suffering but our participating in their suffering? Hurt

certain of my cells and you hurt me. Hurt my friend and you hurt me. My cells are

the friends I have always with me and always care about, whereas my other

friends I may be separated from and may forget or learn to dislike. The mind-

body relation, I suggest, as Plato hinted long ago, is a relation of sympathy; it is

the most instinctive of all forms of sympathy, the form we are born with and do

not have to learn. I seriously believe, and not alone I, that this is the key to the

influence of body upon mind. There is mind on both sides of the relation, but

mind on very different levels. The gap between the levels is crossed by a kind of

sympathy. We share in the emotional life of our cells. That is why, in good health,

we can have a feeling of wellbeing. (pp. 92-93)

Once again, Hartshorne’s pan-psychism follows from Whitehead’s metaphysical edicts

for a creative and courageous application of psychology outside of its traditional parameters.

However, given the necessarily speculative nature of this theory, it would be difficult to judge

the usefulness of Hartshorne’s pan-psychism as a method in OOP. In his specific example, an

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experimental group might be constructed where chronic pain sufferers trained to empathize with

the tissue implicated in their pain. This application falls outside of the scope of

phenomenological psychophysics because the organic tissue in question is not capable of

reporting its subjective experience. Indeed, its subjective experience exists only by-way-of the

experimental investigator.

Roadblocks or none, what follows is an argument for a psychological world of objects

sans humans. The present project—emphasizing the sub-objective event of experience—has

maintained the psychological import of objects insofar as they contribute to experience. Thus,

psychological objects are objects-for-human-subjects. This does not mean that objects only exist

for human subjects, but that the psychological import of objects may only be understood from

the vantage point of human subjects. Object-oriented Psychology must defend a psychology of

objects without humans. This follows from Harman’s argument that objects have a life of

ontological complexity and depth all by themselves. Harman (2002/2006) uses Heidegger’s

(1927/1962) analysis of equipmentality to defend the many-sidedness of objects and their

dynamic capacity to entertain other objects.

Objects without Humans

Momentarily suspended is the assumption that objects gain existential and ontological

depth only when magically intended by subjects. Harman (2002/2006) explains that this to

suppose “that only human beings transcend, as if the objects surrounding us were only dreary

present-at-hand lumps that needed a ‘human touch” to come to life” (p. 92). Here Harman

introduces the language of Heidegger’s (1927/1962) analysis of equipment. While this will be

examined at length below, for now it is sufficient to note that “present-at-hand” refers to the

objects caricatured in the previous section as “objects lying in wait for a human subject.” For

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Heidegger, this life-giving subject is Dasein, and the otherwise dead objects may be understood

as those presupposed by the constancy hypothesis of Modernists and rejected by Humanists.

Heidegger compares “present-at-hand lumps” with the “ready-to-hand” objects of human

intentionality; the latter instance is where they are understood to come to life. As such, objects

are only meaningful insofar as a human is using them—a notion which Harman is challenging.

He continues,

It might even be the case that, like the menacing toys prowling in some depraved

Gepetto’s workship, objects truly flourish only in the midnight reality that shields

them from our view. Perhaps entities are actually rendered bland or uni-

dimensional only through their contact with humans. Perhaps instead of liberating

objects into a clearing, Dasein is actually guilty of chloroforming the things, of

pinning them down like the exterminated moths that bulk up an amateur’s private

collection. (p. 92)

Like Merleau-Ponty, who challenged the notion that a single consciousness orchestrates all of his

limbs by proposing an equally probably alternative scenario, Harman proposes an alternative to

the subject-object relationship that normally privileges the subject. If there is no way to compare

my experience of the cashmere sweater when it’s not being worn for a romantic date, how can I

justify that it is the latter event that best demonstrates the ontological depth of the sweater?

Suspending this assumption gives rise to a novel consideration of the being of objects.

Before getting into Heidegger’s analysis of objects as equipment or tools, consider

Whitehead’s (1933/1967) guidelines for the examination of subject-object occasions. Instead of

beginning with the subject who brings objects into being, Whitehead indicates the reality that

must immediately precede a particular subjective experience:

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The process of experiencing is constituted by the reception of entities, whose

being is antecedent to that process, into the complex fact which is that process

itself. These antecedent entities, thus received as factors into the process of

experiencing, are termed ‘objects’ for that experiential occasion. Thus primarily

the term ‘object’ expresses the relation of the entity, thus denoted, to one or more

occasions of experiencing. Two conditions must be fulfilled in order that an entity

may function as an object in a process of experience: (1) the entity must be

antecedent, and (2) the entity must be experienced in virtue of its antecedence; it

must be given. Thus an object must be a thing received, and must not be either a

mode of reception or a thing generated in that occasion. Thus the process of

experiencing is constituted by the reception of objects into the unity of that

complex occasion which is the process itself. The process creates itself, but it

does not create the objects which it receives as factors in its own nature. (pp. 178-

179)

This was the passage that was closely analyzed in the introduction to Chapter Three. It will

presently be considered as an inspiration for an OOP. There is much to be taken from

Whitehead’s outline of investigation. He repeats that the object that is entertained by an

experiencing subject must be antecedent to the event of its entertainment. Thus the term “object”

denotes the relational capacity towards a subject and not the other way around. In case this is

unclear, he again stresses that “an object must be a thing received, and must not be either a mode

of reception or a thing generated in that occasion.” Whitehead seems to be indicating an object-

in-itself. This object is marked by certain characteristics through which it may be entertained by

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subjects and into subject-object events. Furthermore, the subject-object event must not exhaust

the potentiality of the object, for the object is antecedent to its mode of reception.

Following Whitehead’s guidelines, what remains is an analysis of the object-object

relationship. Like the analysis of the experiencing subject, it will be demonstrated that objects

also occupy the world in certain discrete ways as well as through an unapproachably infinite

limit of possible ways. The finitude and infinitude that characterize objects can also be found

folding in upon one another in a reversibility that suggests that ‘mere’ objects are just as

profound and nuanced as the philosophers who entertain them in late-hour ruminations.

In order to engage the relational capacity of objects, Heidegger’s (1927/1962) impressive

analysis of equipmentality will be taken up. As indicated in its brief presentation above,

Heidegger seems to defend a human-centric reality. However, if the same analysis is read

through a Whiteheadian lens, as Harman has admitted doing (Harman, 1997/2010), the human

privilege dissipates. “If we read Heidegger’s tool-analysis in the right way, the lingering priority

of Dasein in his philosophy is vaporized, and we encounter a strange new world filled with

schooling possibilities for twenty-first century philosophy” (2002/2006, p. 2). Harman argues

that the dual-relationality between human subjects and the objects they entertain applies equally

well to objects’ relationships with other objects. This reversibility of Heidegger’s equipmental

analysis of objects begins to resemble the reversibility of flesh discussed in the previous section.

That is, just as a human subject can be present to themselves as an object, so too can objects

occupy radically different forms of being. Harman explains:

The analysis of equipment is not a limited regional description of hammers, saws,

toothpicks, and other technical devices. Rather, the famous tool-analysis holds

good for all entities, no matter how useful or useless they might be. Beings

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themselves are caught up in a continual exchange between presence-at-hand and

readiness-to-hand. (p. 4)

Harman summarizes the risk of mining Heidegger’s analysis of equipment for its most radical

conclusions:

We are finally in a position to oppose the long dictatorship of human beings in

philosophy. What emerges in its place is a ghostly cosmos in which humans,

dogs, oak trees, and tobacco are on precisely the same footing as glass bottles,

pitchforks, windmills, comets, ice cubes, magnets, and atoms. (p. 2)

This, it should be noted, is precisely what happened when Whitehead had been applied to the

experiencing subject.

Heidegger’s Analysis of Equipment: Tool-being and its Reversal

Recall Heidegger’s contribution the earlier review of nature’s bifurcation. His

(1927/1962) investigation of Being identified a modernist preoccupation with ontic forms of

being. This is the kind of being understood as a matter of fact. Taken up in the practice of

science, Heidegger has noted how this leads to the production of manuals for the sake of more

manuals. This was contrasted with the ontological form of becoming. This is understood as the

mode of Being that is always in the process of creation and discovery. Given the dynamic form

of nature allowed by Heidegger’s ontological hermeneutic, scientific practice continues through

novel production, transformation, and becoming. Here one finds no end-goal to scientific

practice; the book never closes on nature’s investigation. It is evident from his analysis of

Modern philosophy that a preoccupation with ontic being couldn’t be more tiresome. We can

follow a similar differentiation with respect to objects in Heidegger’s analysis of equipment.

Here one finds that objects also manifest with a two-fold purpose.

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Borrowing from the ontic-ontological distinction, we can understand objects in two

different ways. Harman (2002/2006) explains how “there are two separate facets to equipment:

(1) its irreducibly veiled activity, and (2) its sensible and explorable profile. In more familiar

Heideggerian terms, there is the tool viewed “ontologically” and the same tool viewed

“ontically” (p. 22). As an ontic thing, objects have particular qualities and characteristics that

can presumably be known in advance. These are objective characteristics that cannot in

principle participate in events, because we have already learned that events are dynamic. This

leaves the ontological thing: the characteristic of an ontological thing is that it can only

participate in events. No quality can be said about an ontological thing because this quality

could not in principle participate in an event. We thus find two mutually exclusive modes of the

being of objects. In the first instance objects can be described in great detail, but these objects

may never take part in subject-object events. In the second instance we find objects that cannot

be described, but are able to participate in all manner of events. This is how we may begin to

distinguish between objects that are present-at-hand from those ready-to-hand. Heidegger

(1927/1962) explains,

The kind of Being which equipment possesses—in which it manifests itself in its

own right—we call “readiness-to-hand”. Only because equipment has this

‘Being-in-itself’ and does not merely occur, is it manipulable in the broadest

sense and at our disposal. No matter how sharply we just look at the ‘outward

appearance’ of Things in whatever form this takes, we cannot discover anything

read-to-hand. (p. 98)

Here he provides the full description of objects that have the character of ready-to-hand: “it is

manipulable in the broadest sense and at our disposal”—that is, it is available to be taken up in a

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host of projects for which it is uniquely suited and subject to its absorption therein. Heidegger

also indicates the ineffability of objects that have the character of ready-to-hand: “No matter how

sharply we just look at the ‘outward appearance’ … we cannot discover anything ready-to-hand.”

Heidegger provides the description of objects that have the character of present-at-hand by

negation of those ready-to-hand: “The ready-to-hand becomes deprived of its worldhood so that

Being-just-present-at-hand comes to the fore” (106). Just in case there was any confusion as to

Heidegger’s opinion regarding objects that have the character of presence-at-hand, he has

included the indicated their measly stature by prefixing it with the adjective “just.” Harman

(2002/2006) provides the following commentary:

The goal of Martin Heidegger’s career was to identify and to attack the notion of

reality as something present-at-hand. … Heidegger’s error lies in the assumption,

typical of the post-Kantian era, that a reflection on human being is the key to

passing from an unphilosophical perspective to a philosophical one. Heidegger

seems to think that human use of objects is what gives them ontological depth,

frees them from their servitude as mere slabs of present-at-hand physical matter.

And this is the point at which contemporary philosophy needs to part company

with Heidegger in the most radical way: objects themselves are already more than

present-at-hand. The interplay of dust and cinder blocks and shafts of sunlight is

haunted by the drama of presence and withdrawal no less than are language or

lurid human moods. As a result, philosophy must break loose from the textual and

linguistic ghetto that it has been constructing for itself, and return to the drama of

the things themselves. (p. 16)

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At any moment, an object may express the character of readiness-to-hand or “just”

presence-at-hand. In the former, the object is absorbed into the project of a subject as part an

event. In the latter, the object stands opposed to the project of a subject as if announcing its

obstinacy in specific ways. One sees how an object that is absorbed into a subject-object event

could never be identified with particular characteristics. Similarly evident in the latter case is the

manner by which objects refuse to participate in a particular event. Here they effectively

announce those very qualities through which they refuse participation! Heidegger maintains that

the everyday experience of subjects (human and otherwise) takes up objects as equipment in

these two ways. But this neat demarcation between ready-to-hand and present-at-hand does not

satisfy the variety of subject-object relations. While the totality of objects prehended in a

multiplicity of ways might certainly be separated into instances of readiness-to-hand and

presence-at-hand, this does not mean that any one object can ever be placed into either category.

Indeed, the reversibility discussed earlier applies even to the being of objects. Following

Harman (2002/2006), this will be referred to as tool-being.

Consider the scenario of a baseball pitcher who has just forced an infield fly-ball for the

final out of the ballgame. It will be analyzed carefully in order to demonstrate the variety of

ways that tool-being might manifest. For example, the pitcher’s infielders comprise the

equipmental totality that supports the likely conclusion that the last pitch of the game has been

thrown. Even though the shortstop and second basemen are persons of infinite ontological

depth—each with their own uniquely nuanced pre-game rituals—to the pitcher, they are run-

preventing defensive-tools that keep fly-balls from hitting the infield dirt. That is, we find that

the relationship between two persons—pitcher and shortstop—to fit the subject-tool mold. The

other scenario provides the same subject-tool mold but do so without presupposing that tool-

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being is limited to particular types of entities. In it one finds no persons at all—only objects. In

a bicycle, it seems as though a crank arm is pulling the chain-tool around the rear wheel-hub; this

equipment is absorbed into a single bicycle-drive-train event. It is in these scenarios that we find

the domestic world of Heidegger’s tool-shop expanding outward to the public world:

Any work with which one concerns oneself is ready-to-hand not only in the

domestic world of the workshop but also in the public world. Along with the

public world, the environing Nature is discovered and is accessible to everyone.

In roads, streets, bridges, buildings, our concern discovers Nature as having some

definite direction. (p. 100)

Each object is an instance of tool-being, capable of being swept up and utilized in a particular

way by a subject but always occupying definite space and providing particular capacities.

Consider the pitcher who believes that he has just delivered the last pitch of the ball game. The

ball did not fly over the backstop, nor did it find a gap between the extended lateral movement of

the first and second basemen. Retrieving this baseball is well within the capacity of the pitcher’s

defense-tool. The several million blades of outfield grass that run from second base to the

warning track are absorbed into the small halo around the shortstop who has prepared himself to

make the catch. While the center-fielder’s vertical leap, the first-baseman’s hand-eye

coordination, and the catcher’s quick reflexes are all potentialities of the pitcher’s defense-tool,

each is irrelevant to the event that is currently unfolding. Indeed, each of these capacities, along

with the shortstop’s ability to catch a fly-ball, are absorbed into the entire ready-to-hand

equipmental totality of the visiting team’s defensive field. Until, of course, the second-basemen

collides with the shortstop and the ball bounces into the outfield grass. The pitcher’s defense-

tool has broken down. The formerly camouflaged occupants of the equipmental totality of

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visiting-team’s defense-tool announce the singularities of their being as they pertain to the now

unfolding event-structure. Though superfluous moments before, the third-basement is suddenly

found occupying a space with a definite proximity to the embarrassing jumble of infielders, and

the left-fielder’s top-end leg speed becomes integral to the pitcher’s recalibrated defensive-tools.

Tool, broken-tool, and their reversibility. We learn a few interesting details from this

equipmental breakdown. Initially, the ontological identity of the visiting team as defensive tool

is initially wrapped up in the successful retrieval of the infield fly-ball. We find that part of the

living identity of objects as ready-to-hand tools is in partial concealment. This has been well-

documented by Heidegger and the scholars of his work. But we also see various other object-

relations that are occurring within and about the particular instance of defensive tool-being—

additional events that do not necessarily engage our protagonist pitcher. These two details will

be discussed in turn.

While some elements are integral to this task—for example, the shortstop’s proximity to

and view of the descending baseball—others are superfluous: that the center-fielder led the

league in stolen home-runs is of little consequence to the event that occupies him at present.

Thus, even though we see a specific capacity of tool-being while at work in a particular event, no

event can in principle exhaust the ontological capacity of tool-being: elements of tool-being

always remain partially veiled while at work. This is true even of the shortstop, upon whom the

eyes of 30,000 spectators descend—indeed, his capacity to rifle the ball to the first baseman’s

chest is not currently on display. Nor, for that matter, is his capacity to make his daughter giggle

with delight. When drawn into an event, an object demonstrates a limited number of available

capacities—that is, even when brought to life, an object is only partially lit-up. Harman

(2002/2006) writes,

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It is the nature of tool-being to recede from every view. In the strict sense, we can

never know just what equipment is. Like the giant squids of the Marianas Trench,

tool-beings are encountered only once they have washed up dead on shore, no

longer immersed in their withdrawn reality. (pp. 4-5)

Moreover, since we have learned from Heidegger that each instance of an object’s readiness-to-

hand results in its transformation, an object can never be investigated in its entirety. Here one

runs into the limit of Heidegger’s animated Beings.

In the event of the infield fly-ball, one also finds definite material capacities and

limitations within its present-at-hand tool-being. The shortstop cannot, for instance, soar into the

air to meet the baseball at the apex of its flight. We also see from the second-baseman’s

interference that these otherwise veiled capacities of defensive tool-being are continued despite

their presence-at-hand. With the baseball suspended in mid-air, a survey of the field would still

find the dirt compressing beneath the catcher’s cleats, the overtired strings of leather holding

together the third-baseman’s worn-out ball-glove, and the backstop net vigilantly protecting

spectators from errant balls. From Heidegger’s analysis of tools put to work by human use, these

capacities disappear into a single unified tool-being. Despite the spectral limitations it imposes

on spectators, the backstop netting is accommodated by vision and disappears into the baseball

scene. It remains absent from the world until disrupted by a line-drive foul-ball at which point

its materiality becomes appreciably apparent. When put to use by humans, objects occupy this

space of capacity-amplification and reduction. Yet neither in amplification nor in reduction does

an object’s tool-being exhaust its being. However, instead of arguing that this continued retreat

of tool-being into the shadows makes their investigation unmanageable, Harman (2002/2006)

explains that this rejuvenates the world of objects:

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That tool-beings retreat into a silent background means not only that they are

invisible to humans, but that they exceed any of their interactions with other tool-

beings. In this sense, tool-beings are unearthly, otherworldly. Then far from

abolishing the transcendent world of things in themselves, Heidegger

inadvertently rejuvenates this notion in a form that no dialectic can overcome. In

this respect, he is a full step beyond most of his successors, who continue to wage

war against a naïve brand of Billiard Ball Realism that is no longer a threat to

anyone. (p. 5)

The backstop net does not hang idly by until called into action by the several hundred intending

humans who perilously face a careening foul-ball. This is a reproduction of the modernist

assumption of objects that supposes that they simply remain where they were left, and do so

inactively. Whitehead (1933/1967) explains how “[t]hus viewed in abstraction objects are

passive, but viewed in conjunction they carry the creativity which drives the world. The process

of creation is the form of unity of the Universe” (p. 179). In the passive form, we understand the

ontic identity of beings. Take the backstop net as an example: it was created by humans for

human-protection from foul-balls. It will hang there until it no longer protects humans from

foul-balls, at which point a human will take it down and replace it or update it. This backstop net

could also be viewed creatively, as though it were always participating in the events of nature.

Objects may be thus classified:

The initial situation with its creativity can be termed the initial phase of the new

occasion. It can equally well be termed the ‘actual world’ relative to that

occasion. … It can thus be termed a ‘real potentiality.’ The ‘potentiality’ refers to

a passive capacity, the term ‘real’ refers to the creative activity…. (p. 179)

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At each moment, objects may be classified as a ‘real potentiality.’ For the shortstop, the real

includes all of the processes and capacities that are engaged in the successful retrieval of the fly-

ball; the potential includes the sum total of available capacities that remain veiled. As soon as

the baseball hits the dirt, the shortstop’s ability to rifle the ball to the first-baseman’s chest

becomes real, and the fly-ball retrieval becomes a potentiality (or a null potentiality). The tool-

being of the short-stop, wielded by the pitcher, is a real potentiality—the sum of unearthed

capacities and current engagements. By smooshing them together, Whitehead indicates the

interconnection of these modes of tool-being. We understand that these modes of tool-being fold

over upon one another to such a degree that readiness-to-hand is always on the verge of

becoming mere presence-at-hand, and vice-versa. While this distinction is easily introduced into

the tool-being of a shortstop, consider also the backstop net, the plot of real-estate upon which

the stadium was built, or the chemical reactions taking place in the megawatt fluorescent stadium

light-bulbs. Harman (2002/2006) explains,

It is crucial to note that this is not restricted to tools of human origin: there are

also dependable earth-formations that provide useful caravan routes or hold back

the sea. At each moment, the world is a geography of objects, whether these

objects are made of the latest plastics or were born at the dawn of time (p. 21)

Each of these objects may be understood in terms of the multiplicity of lives that are found

within their capacity—lives that do not require the human to initiate. Considering objects from

the perspective of humans is simply one way of doing so. Since the present project is interested

in decentering the human, this perspective will be presently suspended. This allows for a more

expanded conception of the object-relations within Nature. Whitehead (1933/1967) also notes

that the human perspective is just one special life-thread of a unified Nature:

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This is at once the doctrine of the unity of nature, and of the unity of each human

life. The conclusion follows that our consciousness of the self-identity pervading

our life-thread of occasions, is nothing other than knowledge of a special strand of

unity within the general unity of nature. It is a locus within the whole, marked out

by its own peculiarities, but otherwise exhibiting the general principle which

guides the constitution of the whole. This general principle is the object-to-subject

structure of experience. (Whitehead, pp. 187-188)

Continuing, the object-to-subject relationship will be considered absent the assumption

that their only meaningful interaction takes place via an intentional human.

The Object In-itself

The argument that objects have a life outside of human interaction is a realist claim. This

is precisely what is being developed here. This one is not the orthodox 19th-century brand of

realism, but one that is defended by phenomenology. This is an unusual point of departure given

phenomenology’s penchant for criticizing all forms of realism. As Harman (2002/2006, 2011)

and Meillassoux (2003/2012) have observed, phenomenology and other continental schools of

thought have developed principally in their opposition to realism. However, a phenomenological

defense of realism isn’t as oxymoronic as it might at first appear.

We have already seen three instances of ontological arguments against realism that

support a new, more sophisticated brand of realism. The first, of course, is Whitehead’s

(1933/1967) above claim that objects are antecedent to events—this follows his systematic

critique of Modern Science (1925/1953) for its regular commission of the fallacy of misplaced

concreteness; second is the mention of Michael Polanyi in the discussion of Maslow’s

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Humanism (Literature Review)10

; third is Husserl’s dismissal of the constancy hypothesis brand

of realism in order to promote a well known transcendental science focused on things

themselves, which will be discussed in the subsequent section. To this list I would like to add

Heidegger’s (1927/1962) analysis of equipment and Merleau-Ponty’s (1945/1962) perception of

objects.

Heidegger’s objects. From his aforementioned critique of modernist philosophy and

science, we find that Heidegger deplores the endless cataloging of the ontic characteristics of

things. These are things by themselves, sucked into a vacuum and incapable of interacting with

other beings or things. These are objects present-at-hand. Instead of this being the mode of

being of objects, it has been noted that this is a mode of being—that is, ontic being. While such

descriptions of objects can be extensive and reliable, these descriptions never enter into

relationships with other beings and things. When objects are swept up into relationship, they

come to life and enter into the process of transformation characteristic of ontological being.

Objects demonstrate ontic modes of being as well as ontological modes of being, and these two

modes fold over upon one another in what we have called the reversibility of objects (following

the language of Merleau-Ponty from the previous section). This seems to promote a realism

wherein objects exist in-themselves only when they have the ontic character of being—that is to

say, objects are only objects when they’re not doing anything. We have already discussed the

10 Polanyi (1958) argues against objectivism—the belief in the absolute validity in third-person scientific claims. He

does so through two points: first, scientists cannot possibly be objective about the universe because the practice of

inquiry—four centuries old, and limited to what can be explored from earth—has only investigated a microcosm of

the geography of the universe in a very narrow and hyper-specific time-frame; second, scientists are always making

personal judgments about the objects being investigated—which questions to ask, which tools to use, where to look,

etc. Together, these claims suggest that scientific practice is just as much personal as it is objective. After disabusing realism of the Modern purist notions of objectivity, Polanyi (1964) develops an ontological realism based

on the insights of Gestalt Perception Theory. He argues that the world presents itself in particular ways, through

particular and not arbitrary gestalts. This structure of things is available in a tacit-dimension, a dimension of

communion between objects and subjects, mediated by intuition. That is, scientists do not access objects directly,

but do so through the mediation of certain tools.

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mutual exclusivity of ontic and ontological modes of being, but now we must demonstrate that

this is not of the either/or variety. That is, objects are not either ontic or ontological, but always

both—just as subjects and objects may always be separated into the same categories. It is here

that one finds Heidegger’s sophisticated brand of realism.

Objects can always be understood as an endless list of characteristics—for example, the

trading card of the shortstop from before lists his ontic capacity for offensive-tool-being and

defensive-tool-being. Moreover, you or I might run into said shortstop as a .287 batting average,

38 home-runs, or a blown 9th

-inning third-out. While being thus engaged, the offensive- or

defensive-tool-being might present a here-to-for unseen side of him or itself which demands an

expansion of ontic-tool-being. Does one face the ontological shortstop or the ontic shortstop?

At which point does the tool break down? Can it break down without its user noticing? Can a

tool ever break down and leave its user in ontological suspension? Instead of conceiving the

reversibility of being as a mutually exclusive relationship where the two are continually tagging

in and out, we find that they are always engaged though in different ways, and never completely

exhausted.

While the example of the human aptly demonstrates the reversibility of being, the goal

here is not to defend Heidegger as a correlationist, but as a realist—one who does only consider

humans in-themselves, but considers objects in-themselves as well. From the earlier discussion

of equipmentality, Heidegger (1927/1962) points to the world of tool-being outside of the

workshop—he calls this the “public world” (p. 100). He continues, “A covered railway

platform takes account of bad weather; an installation for public lighting takes account of the

darkness, or rather of specific changes in the presence or absence of daylight—the ‘position of

the sun’” (p. 101). For a moment, Heidegger’s ontological character as a humanist-tool breaks

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down, and gives up the richness and depth of the world of objects—objects without any humans

to engage them. While he might certainly be discarded along with broken bicycle chains, are we

to understand that a broken tool is a reduction to mere presence-at-hand? By no means! Perhaps

his capacity for tool-being requires expansion to allow for additional possibilities—the additional

possibilities that he has generously extended to covered railway platforms and public lighting

installations. These, it seems, have an ontological depth more akin to Dasein than to billiard

balls. This is why Harman explains that “Heidegger’s account of equipment gives birth to an

ontology of objects themselves. Contrary to the usual view, tool-being does not describe objects

insofar as they are handy implements employed for human purposes” (2002/2006, p. 1). Indeed,

Heidegger is not being painted as a “billiard ball realist,” but as a realist in the sense of

Whitehead’s objects which have “real potentiality.”

Merleau-Ponty’s Objects. Perhaps the most formidable argument against the realism

that is here proposed comes from Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception. Recall from

the Literature Review above how Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) himself has accused

Phenomenology of Perception of being too lopsided in its consideration of consciousness as the

mediation of all things. However, like Heidegger immediately above, even Merleau-Ponty’s

Humanist-tool-being breaks down in an unexpected flight towards that which would characterize

his later work.

Like Polanyi and Husserl, Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962) has followed the Gestalt theory’s

dismissal of the constancy hypothesis but, instead of looking to the object-form, he begins with

consciousness. Perception is the point of departure, for it is here that everything begins. In order

to understand that world, one must begin with perception.

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In one instance, Merleau-Ponty suggests the untenability of positing an object in-itself.

As with Whitehead (1933/1967), for Merleau-Ponty all prehended objects are prehended from a

particular vantage point. In the preceding discussion, this is why an object is always partially

veiled. Even the shortstop, with the 30,000 sets of eyes descending upon him, is partially

veiled—not only is this still a limited number of spectral angles, but it is also a limited number of

contexts and occasions. To talk of a cup or table that exists in-itself, is to suggest that everything

it has possibly done or can do has been cross-examined. Merleau-Ponty suggests that a

perceived object never makes it this far. Indeed, to consider an object in terms of its availability

to 360-degrees of visible access is to suggest that it could unfold in the presence of an observer

in order to reveal each of its sides at once, and no such perspective exists.

For example, I see the next-door house from a certain angle, but it would be seen

differently from the right bank of the Seine, or from the inside, or again from an

aeroplane: the house itself is none of these appearances; it is, as Leibniz said, the

flat projection of these perspectives and of all possible perspectives, that is, the

perspectiveless position from which all can be derived, the house seen from

nowhere. (p. 67)

Merleau-Ponty seems to suggest that the house seen from all possible perspectives would be

some sort of geometrical ideal—the house as navigated with the aid of digital software with

which it can be rotated on a computer screen. Indeed, this is the house devoid of any ontological

being: the house as the aggregation of ontic spectral characteristics. This, it seems, is no house at

all—at least not as perceived by a human. It certainly isn’t a house that can begin to collect dust,

tenants, and memories. Here Merleau-Ponty provides a cogent argument against realism: an

object cannot have any meaningful or impactful existence in-itself; it is always limited to an

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existence for an observer. Absent the human, an object is limited to an ontic catalog, like a

Humanist rendering of Heidegger’s equipment. However, just like Heidegger, who carries his

analysis of equipment into the private ruminations of railway platform-covers, Merleau-Ponty

continues to inch towards the invisible objects in-themselves. He considers his meditation on the

visual perception of objects,

To see is to enter a universe of beings which display themselves, and they would

not do this if they could not be hidden behind each other or behind me. In other

words: to look at an object is to inhabit it, and from this habituation to grasp all

things in terms of the aspect which they present to it. But in so far as I see those

things too, they remain abodes open to my gaze, and, being potentially lodged in

them, I already perceive from various angles the central object of my present

vision. Thus every object is the mirror of all others. When I look at the lamp on

my table, I attribute to it not only the qualities visible from where I am, but also

those which the chimney, the walls, the table can ‘see’; the back of my lamp is

nothing but the face which it ‘shows to the chimney. I can therefore see an object

in so far as objects form a system or a world, and in so far as each one treats the

others round it as spectators of its hidden aspects which guarantee the permanence

of those aspects by their presence. Any seeing of an object by me is

instantaneously repeated between all those objects in the world which are

apprehended as co-existent, because each of them is all that the others ‘see’ of it.

Our previous formula must therefore be modified: the house itself is not the house

seen from nowhere, but the house seen from everywhere. The completed object is

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translucent, being shot through from all sides by an infinite number of present

scrutinizes which intersect in its depths leaving nothing hidden. (pp. 68-69)

It becomes exceedingly difficult to maintain Merleau-Ponty’s Humanist agenda in light of

certain realist excursions into the geography of objects like this one here. He begins by slowly

expanding the object as it appears to the human observer. The interplay between observer and

observed is suggestive of the subject/object reversibility that he would propose later, but he still

finds the central locus in the perceiving gaze. He then claims that “every object is the mirror of

all others.” This marks a point of departure. He does not suggest that an object is a mirror of the

perceiver, but of all other objects. Anthropomorphisms aside, Merleau-Ponty extends his

relationship with the lamp in order to consider the lamp’s relations to other available objects. It

could nearly be argued that Merleau-Ponty imagines the lamp as seen from the chimney as

though the chimney provides just another vantage point that could be taken up. However, his

additional observations make this argument unlikely. He claims that an object seen “is

instantaneously repeated between all those objects in the world” and, furthermore, “each of them

is all that the others ‘see’ of it.” Thus, one finds that the being of an object in a particular

moment is not limited to its engagement with a particular observer. Were two additional

observers present, the one lamp must be taken across each of these intentionalities, and not as

three separately intended lamps. If prehension is used to replace intentional consciousness, the

lamp in-itself must include the prehending-prehended interrelationships of all present objects.

Only here does one begin to understand the “real” lamp. But the “real” being—referring to the

“real potentiality” of objects introduced by Whitehead, above—also does not exhaust the being

of the lamp. To this one must also add the as yet untapped potentialities of being—those that

presently lay dormant.

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With Merleau-Ponty, one actually begins to understand the world of objects as they exist

in-themselves. While the analysis of objects provided in Phenomenology of Perception takes up

the being of objects from the vantage point of embodied consciousness, it is understood even

here that the imperial human gaze presents one of many subjectivities by which objects might be

entertained. This becomes particularly clear in The Visible and the Invisible. For Merleau-

Ponty, the object in-itself must include the object as “seen” by every present object. This, of

course, does not mean that an object is limited to spectral qualities. Just as sense-awareness is

not limited to vision in humans, so too might it be understood that the visibility of an object is a

euphemism for all availabilities of the latter to prehension.

Heidegger also selects the human as the point of departure into the being of objects, but

this does not limit the being of things to their availability and unavailability to Dasein. The

human simply provides an easily accessible example of how objects are readily absorbed into

particular tasks. From the scenarios that introduced the section, the equipmental world of the

pitcher has received the most attention. Here it was shown how baseball infielders can be taken

up as equipmental objects of defensive tool-being. That is, beings with the undeniable capacity

for the mode of being characteristic of Dasein can also be engaged with as tools when taken up

as such. This happens whenever shortstops are glorified by trading cards or honored with

Golden Glove Awards. In the spirit of the present object, we will now turn to beings with the

undeniable capacity for the mode of being that is not characteristic of Dasein and consider them

in the expanded ontological depth of tool-being.

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CHAPTER FIVE:

DISCUSSION

This project has re-examined the founding principles of psychology by reviewing the two

major metaphysical perspectives that have put them into practice. In the literature review, these

perspectives were identified as modernism and humanism (following Merleau-Ponty, 1957-

57/2003). In its modern format, psychology is a logical empirical discipline which seeks to

identity the physical and psychical bits that make up human behavior and experience. In this

sense it is reductive because it reduces human experience to the simplest bits and parts. This

position has been criticized by a century of psychologists because it seems to miss out on

something integral to psychology. In its humanist format, psychology is a social, existential, or

phenomenological discipline which seeks to identify the structures of human behavior and

experience as they are lived. In this sense it is holistic because the subject matter is always

found within a greater context in which meaning is made. This position has only recently come

under scrutiny due to its anthropocentric emphasis on the human. With a few exceptional areas

of overlap, these two perspectives of the discipline of psychology remain divided.

The project began with the 21st century situation in the discipline of psychology as it

might have been seen by Alfred North Whitehead. He would likely refer to the division within

the discipline as a bifurcation. This has been suggested through Whitehead’s (1938/1958) hope

that modern science and humanism might find some conciliation. I have argued that the

discipline of psychology, as outlined by Wundt (1897), Fechner (1859/1966), and James

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(1890/2007, 1899/1962) is the conciliation that Whitehead had hoped to see across the sciences.

Despite the fact that these proposals for psychological and psychophysical sciences have been

made well over a hundred years ago, psychological science at its present state seems to have

continued in a bifurcated fashion.

I have combined the philosophy of science of Whitehead along with that of like-minded

phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty in order to outline a psychology that is consonant with

the early proposals listed above. Language has been borrowed primarily from Wundt’s (1897)

Outlines of Psychology. Here he identifies the two integral elements of psychology’s subject-

matter: the experiencing subject, and objects of experience (p. 3). Here one finds the unification

of subject and object through an experiential incident. Borrowing from the vernacular of

Whitehead, I have referred to this incident as an “event.” Chapter Three provides an in-depth

overview of the subject-matter of psychology thus outlined. I have called this subject-matter The

Sub-objective Event of Experience. When viewed thus, psychology is understood to be equally

subjective and objective. Indeed, subjectivity cannot be found outside of a body (human or

otherwise), and objectivity cannot be found outside of an observing subject. In addition to

providing an in-depth description of psychology as a sub-objective event of experience, Chapter

Three also lays the foundation of a posthuman or object-oriented psychology. By remaining

faithful to the 19th century proposals for psychology, as well as the metaphysics provided by

Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty, a number of rich possibilities emerge for contemporary

psychology and the posthumanities.

While Chapter Three defends a theoretical expansion of the psychological subject-matter

to include nontraditional (i.e., nonhuman) subjects, Chapter Four demonstrates the lack of

methodological tools for investigating the psychology of nontraditional subjects. It is important

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to have both kinds of data because it has been maintained that both subject and object are

necessary for the event of experience. As it stands, humans are the only entit ies who are

available to subjective and objective investigation. That is, humans may be investigated as

objects (with mass, heart-rate, skin-conductance, etc.) and as subjects (with first-person

descriptions of experience). The method of phenomenological psychophysics has been proposed

for the sub-objective investigation of humans. In the first review, a nonhuman psychology fails

because the subjectivity of nonhuman entities is incapable of being investigated—it is

necessarily alien to human investigators. This has been found through the attempted method of

alien phenomenology (Bogost, 2012). Investigating the subjectivity of nonhuman entities would

necessarily be anthropomorphic and speculative. Furthermore, in the second review, a

nonhuman psychology fails doubly because the objectivity of nonhuman entities is limited to

empirical sense-qualities—that is, objective qualities for human observers. Once again, the

objective investigation of nonhuman entities is limited to anthropocentric empiricism. This has

been found through the proposed method of object-oriented psychology. Whether an entity has

nonhuman sense-characteristics is left to pure speculation.

Future Directions for Research

The conclusion here is not that a nonhuman or object-oriented psychology is necessarily

impossible. Judgment is optimistically suspended on the possibility for such research programs.

Indeed, the discipline of psychology would need to continue to undergo a transformation in order

for such programs to develop. This transformation would begin with the increasing comfort

regarding the recognition of nonhuman subjectivities and objectivities. With this shift in

consciousness, methods like object-oriented psychology will continue to be applied in

courageous and compelling ways which will lead to new insights. John Watson was earlier cited

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as an exemplar of Whitehead’s boldness in the generalization of metaphysical principles.

Watson applied the rules of mechanism to humans and animals. By manipulating what occurs

before behavior, Watson hypothesized that he could control behavior. This follows the

mechanical law of cause and effect—namely, if cause, then effect. While his classical

conditioning failed to yield the breakthroughs he had hoped, it opened up the door for the

boldness of another behaviorist—B.F. Skinner. In a move that had to have been unthinkable at

the time of Watson’s Behaviorism, Skinner reversed the order of cause and effect. By following

a target behavior with reinforcement, Skinner was able to increase the target behavior. As it

stands with the present proposal for object-oriented psychology and alien phenomenology, the

exciting work has yet to be done.

There is, however, some immediate promise for the first of the proposed methods in

Chapter Four. This is the 21st-century version of Fechnerian psycho-physics. It has already been

argued that phenomenology is integral to the classical perceptual-psychophysics protocol.

Therefore, phenomenologizing this method is really nothing new. However, at the time of

Fechner’s (1859) proposal, tools for investigating “inner” psychophysics had not yet been well-

established. I argue, with much contemporary support, that these tools have been well-developed

and well-established. This goes for the tools of “inner” physiological investigation as well as

“inner” phenomenological investigation. Moving forward I suspect to see (and conduct) a

growing number of phenomenological psychophysical research projects. By describing a few

here, hopefully the reader will be able to construct projects that more closely align with her

interests. Since the breadth of methodological parameters have been formally outlined in Section

IV, descriptions here will be limited to theoretical defense and design.

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Running by feel. The 1970s saw a growth in the popularity of running. In addition to

the gobs of people that began littering the roads, trails, and tracks, the popularity was also

marked by an increase in the development of training principles. Over the decades that followed,

the training of elite athletes became a matter of science. “Running” gets replaced by VO-2-Max

training, lactate-threshold training, aerobic development, anaerobic development, fat-

metabolizing runs, lactate-metabolizing runs, glycogen-metabolizing runs, etc., etc.

After forty years of increasingly sophisticated scientific approaches to running, elite

coach and former US marathoner John Kellogg (in Davis, 2012) asks about what has really been

gained. Instead of hooking his athletes up to heart-rate monitors and oxygen masks, Kellogg

advocates a simplistic approach: running by feel. The notion is as old as is running, and the

method couldn’t be easier to employ. Kellogg explains that running should be like surfing—

some days you spend all of your swimming out to sea, looking for the right wave; other days you

find it easily and go for a ride. Running by feel allows the body to dictate intensity levels,

duration, effort, rest, nutrition, etc., instead of relying on a chart of levels, times, and calories.

When viewed as a phenomenological psychophysical event, running by feel makes sense.

Consider a very basic intensity gauge: blood-lactate levels. When put to work, muscles produce

lactate which can be converted to energy or cleared away as waste. Indeed, the very contraction

of a muscle produces lactate. Thus, while walking or running, your leg-muscles produce lactate.

If the intensity of a work-bout is high enough, muscles will produce more lactate than can be

cleared away. This is experienced as burning sensation in your muscles. When the lactate build-

up gets to a certain point, the work-bout ends or the intensity is adjusted in order for lactate

clearance to catch back up. As one can imagine, there is a point between jogging and sprinting

where the lactate production level begins to exceed the lactate-clearance rate. This is popularly

353

called the lactate-threshold. The lactate threshold is of little consequence to sprinters because

these races are typically done before lactate levels become unmanageable. The lactate threshold

is of great consequence to long-distance runners. By spending time at the lactate threshold while

in training, athletes can improve the efficiency with which lactate is removed from the muscles

as well as increase their stamina for running through the discomfort.

As a staple in long-distance training regimens, lactate threshold workouts can be easy to

overdo. By running these workouts too fast, overtraining can occur. By spending too much time

beyond the lactate-threshold, allowing lactate to build up in the muscles, recovery can take

considerably longer without any added fitness benefits. This makes the lactate threshold an

incredibly important measurement.

Blood-lactate levels can be measured by taking a sample from a finger-prick test. When

running close-to but below the lactate threshold, blood-lactate levels are low at about 2.0 mmols

per liter of blood. Once the lactate threshold is exceeded, this level can jump to 4.0 mmols/liter.

This jump occurs in a very small window when measured by a stopwatch, but a very large

window when measured through perceived effort. For example, I can comfortably run at a pace

of 5:50 minutes per mile which is just below my lactate threshold. At this pace, my breathing is

relaxed but steady, my form is comfortable, and my heart rate is about 85% HR-max. With

sufficient nutrition, I could run at this pace for two or three hours. At a pace of 5:40 min/M,

lactate begins to accumulate at a rate such that in an hour I will be forced to stop. At this pace,

my breathing rate increases by 50%, extra effort is required to keep my form, and my heart rate

is about 90% HR-max. And finally, at a pace of 5:30 min/M, lactate begins to accumulate

rapidly. At this pace my breathing is stressed, my form is stressed, and my heart rate is about

92% HR-max.

354

Notice how in the above description, which is standard training protocol, all of the

quantitative measures are close to one another. If measuring a workout by a heart rate monitor,

7% of HR-max (or about 13 beats) is all that separates a workout that is too easy from one that is

too hard. If measured by a stopwatch, then this difference is only 20s. Now consider the

differences when measured by feel. Though only a few heartbeats per minute and a few seconds

per mile separates lactate-clearance from lactate-accumulation, the difference in perceived effort

is considerable.

This would be the place to start a phenomenological psychophysical study of running by

feel. It could have many different areas of investigation. For example, how easily can well-

trained athletes approximate levels of effort that correspond to physiological adaptation

principles? This would have the two-fold benefit of replacing stopwatch-based workouts, but

also possibly drawing into question the direction of the relationship between perceived effort and

blood-lactate levels. This might be followed by a phenomenological investigation of running at,

below, or above the lactate threshold in a variety of contexts (e.g., it is famously easy to run at

the lactate threshold for six miles in a race, but infamously difficult to run these six miles alone

while during a workout).

These would provide the beginning of a research program that emphasizes running by

feel. Training by heart-rate monitor and stopwatch might be replaced by running by feel. The

science of running would slowly incorporate the phenomenology of running, and runners would

not have to seek micromanagement for running mechanics, nutrition, pace, gait, rest, etc.,

because these are less standardized than they are personal.

355

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